Last week's soaking rain shows up clearly on the newest national drought map for Grayson County.
The latest U.S. Drought Monitor map, which reflects conditions through Tuesday, Oct. 6, puts just 0.73% of the county in extreme drought. A week earlier, 72.49% of the county carried that rating, and 1.36% was in exceptional drought, the most severe level. Exceptional drought is now gone from the county.
The improvement is real but partial. All of Grayson County is still classified as being in at least moderate drought, and 72.45% remains in severe drought or worse, according to the county statistics the Drought Monitor publishes with each map. The week before, every acre was at least in severe drought.
How fast it got bad
The dry spell came on quickly. At the end of July, the Drought Monitor showed no dryness or drought anywhere in the county. By mid-August, about 82% was in moderate drought. Severe drought arrived in late August, and extreme drought covered about 35% of the county by early September and nearly 72.5% from mid-September on.
What changed this week
The map's weekly summary says rainfall of several inches, in some places for the second week in a row, fell in a band from central Texas through much of the Red River Valley into central Oklahoma, and that improvements were far more common than declines across Texas and Oklahoma.
It notes that Dallas recorded 4 inches of rain from Sept. 30 through the first week of October, including 3.47 inches on Oct. 1, after only 0.01 inch from July 16 through Sept. 29.
Neighboring counties improved too, by the Drought Monitor's numbers:
