Your Weekly Drought Update: Needle Stays Put

Map by National Drought Monitor

The Texas drought as of March 1, 2012.

Welcome back to your weekly drought update. Every Thurdsay, the National Drought Monitor releases the latest data (collected each Tuesday), which provides a handy snapshot of where things are.

And as of today, they’re pretty much in the same place they were last week. Not much improvement, but things haven’t gotten much worse, either:

• A portion of southwest Texas went from the “extreme” stage of drought to the highest level of drought, “exceptional.”
• Much of the rest of Texas is in the same spot it was last week. Six percent of the state is still drought-free, while nearly 15 percent of Texas is in the worst stage of drought, “exceptional” (up from 14 percent last week).

Read more about the Texas drought and our previous coverage here, Everything You Need to Know About the Texas Drought.