Undoubtedly, the big story for the past few weeks has been rainfall. Many areas have dealt with flooding because of the high volume of rain in a short amount of time.
The silver lining of the flood risk we have dealt with is that there has been a significant improvement in the rainfall deficit and drought conditions.
The map above highlights the areas that saw significant improvements in drought status between last week’s and this week’s editions of the drought monitor.
This is now the updated drought map. Only isolated areas in the Highlands and Southside Zones register as “Abnormally Dry.” The new map shows a huge jump from last week’s widespread abnormally dry and moderate drought conditions!
The future precipitation outlook from the Climate Prediction Center for May 30th - June 5th illustrate either an average or below average amount of rainfall expected for Southwest and Central Virginia.
The below-average rainfall may be helpful as some portions of the viewing area recover from the past week’s significant rain.
The CPC’s 30-Day Outlook holds hope after our brief dip in precip totals. In the grand scheme of things, rainfall amounts will be generally on the up and up through the next month!