The worst drought to hit the continental United States in decades just took a turn for the worse, ending a five-week period of improving conditions, the Associated Press reports:
The weekly U.S. Drought Monitor report shows that 60.1 percent of the continental U.S. was in some form of drought as of Tuesday. That’s up from 58.8 percent the previous week.
The portion of the lower 48 states in extreme or exceptional drought — the two worst classifications — also rose, to 19.04 percent from last week’s 18.3 percent.