Gradual drought improvement continues across Georgia

For the first time since early December of 2025, a tiny sliver of Georgia is no longer in a drought.

The latest update from the drought monitor shows a tiny, 0.18% area of the state now drought-free in Northwest Georgia. While this is far from impressive, it highlights a general trend of improvement in drought conditions across the majority of state in the past few weeks.

The latest update shows none of the state in a D4/Exceptional Drought, and we dropped from 24% last week to just 6% this week of the state in a D3/Extreme Drought. This is a massive improvement over last week, and even more so over just 3 weeks ago, which can be seen below.

This has been driven by the plentiful rainfall we have seen over the past 30 days. A widespread 5-9″ has fallen for practically the entire state. This is a big change from when we were going weeks with less than 1″.

This improvement isn’t just limited to the past week, though, as both 90 day and 180 day numbers are looking better. Below you can see that the 90 day percentage of normal rainall is above 70% for a big portion of the state. The 180 day rainfall anomalies have actually turned positive for a lucky few in west/northwest Georgia and east around Augusta. While there are still some areas near double digits, particularly in the North-Central Georgia Mountains, the vast majority are now seeing deficits of 6″ or less going back a full 6 months.

While these numbers are great, we aren’t completely out of the woods yet. An incoming hot summer pattern and a turn to more pop-up type storms make no guarantees of any one spot seeing rain in the next week or two, but overall the upcoming weather pattern does appear damp. Our biggest challenge is now overcoming soil moisture levels below the surface. The image below from drought.gov shows current percentiles of soil moisture in the first 1 meter down. This map has gotten exponentially better, but many locations still remain below 70% of normal moisture. These numbers will likely improve if we continue to see rainfall, however crops and summer growth pull a lot of moisture out of the ground which could cause these numbers to drop quickly if we enter another dry spell.

We’ll be keeping an eye on the weather and keeping our fingers crossed for more rain and more drought improvement!