Rain helped, but the Kansas drought remains a problem

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — After some much-needed rain in some areas of Kansas, the drought has lessened, but not by much.

The new U.S. Drought Monitor report released on Thursday shows more than 80% of the state still suffers from drought. The information is based on measurements from Tuesday, before the most recent rainfall.

The report says that the “rampant storminess largely bypassed some of the extreme to exceptional drought areas.”

The U.S. Drought Monitor uses the term exceptional drought to label the driest areas. The report released Thursday says 35.5% of the state fits that category, an improvement over last week’s 41.1%.

The second worst category is the area covered by a lighter shade of red on the map. It signifies extreme drought. That area decreased by almost 5% since last week’s report.

The deep orange color covers the areas experiencing severe drought. It shrank by 5.7% in the past week.

The light orange or beige color marks the areas of moderate drought. It is 3.5% smaller this week.

Yellow areas are abnormally dry. The U.S. Drought Monitor uses that for dry regions not yet in a drought or for areas recovering from drought. The yellow portion shrank by 4.8% since last week.

Almost 13% of Kansas has no dryness or drought, an improvement of 4.8% over last week.

The images above show the Kansas drought status from one year ago to this week.