Southeast drought eases only slightly

GREENVILLE, S.C. - Recent rains have only slightly eased drought conditions covering the Carolinas and Georgia.

A U.S. Drought Monitor report released Thursday found there are still exceptional drought conditions the most severe category centered near Greenville. Severe drought conditions eased slightly, scaling back in the eastern half of North Carolina.

The report shows all of northeast Georgia - from Gwinnett County to Rabun, from Fannin to Clarke County - now with extreme drought conditions, the second most severe category.

Otherwise conditions were largely unchanged from a July 1 report, and a drought still covers most of the three states.

An early season heat wave and a lack of rain in June had worsened conditions that have gripped the Southeast for much of the last year. The Drought Monitor report assesses conditions up through Tuesday morning and does not include additional rain that has fallen in the past few days.

(AccessNorthGa.com's Ken Stanford contributed to this report.)

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On the Net:
U.S. Drought Monitor map: http://drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html