Rain brings drought improvement to Georgia

The latest from the US Drought Monitor brings great, and unsurprising, news to the northern 2/3 of the state.

Recent plentiful rainfall over the past month has resulted in big improvement in the drought across North and most of Central Georgia. The area of exceptional drought across Northeast Georgia is long gone, with a 2 level drop to severe drought. Over the past week the area in at least a D3 has dropped from 78-56%. That said, 95% of the state remains in at least a D2, severe drought, or higher with soil moisture 10-20″ below the surface still significantly below average. Much of southeast Georgia remains under an exceptional drought with a lot less rain falling there recently.

Total rainfall in the past 30 days varies a lot from location to location, but most of North Georgia has seen at least 6″ of rain in the month of May. Just south of the I-20 corridor as well as the southeast coastal areas have seen the least.

This rain has allowed the 6-month deficits to improve quite a bit. The vast majority of the northern 2/3 of the state were in the double digits to start the month, but now a big chunk of northwest Georgia and parts of Southwest to Central Georgia are less than 5″, and the rest of the state maxes out only around 8″.

Those numbers place all but the far southeastern portion of the state at or over 65% of average rainfall since late November.

With more rain in the forecast, we expect to see drought conditions to continue to improve over the coming week or two. However, we still have a long way to go. While surface moisture is in great shape, it takes time for deeper soil to be replenished and not drain out, so we’ll need to see the rain keep going to really get things where we want them.

Luckily, we are likely headed into a strong El Nino through the summer and fall which generally results in mild, wet weather across Georgia.