Linked below is the map of the entire country. Texas remains 100% in drought, which I find astounding. It is hard to imagine an area that large is still 100% in drought, but it is. Here is a link that might be useful: USA Drought Monitor Map

I've been watering too. I planted several rose bushes and other bushes in the early fall, so I knew they needed more water. Not looking forward to my water bill. My sewer charge for the next year is based on my water usage for Nov-Jan, so if I water a lot in the winter, I get to pay extra for it all year long. :(

Robert, Back when we all were flooded, I never expected a Flash Drought would develop so quickly. Let's hope it goes away as quickly as it came. Your area is in the worst shape by far. Talihina's KBDI for tomorrow is 704. For comparison's sake, Burneyville's is only 529. As dry as we are now, I know your area must be quite a bit drier just based on a comparison of those numbers. On the Mesonet ticker a couple of days ago, Gary McManus said SE OK, for the previous 30-day period, was the driest it has been since 1921. I don't think SC OK is quite as dry because some of the counties that make up our region have had a bit more rain. While we cooled down a bit this week, especially at night, our daytime highs still are running 3 or 4 degrees higher than forecast. I blame our excessively dry soil for that. Bon I hope you are getting enough rain up there to keep everything green. We've been thru flash droughts before and we'll just deal with it (ha ha, like there is an alternative). It is hard on the plants that made lush growth in all that rain to now have no rain, but there's nothing we can do about it. This is not the summer we were hoping for, but that's nothing new. I always hope for cooler, wetter summer weather and rarely get it! Dawn

Robert, I'll mention it. F L O O D. Well, I spelled it out so that the weather gods wouldn't know what I was saying. I can't believe you're back in severe again. I really thought we'd get more rain than we have and that it would help more. I shudder at the mention of back to back drought years. Did we not just go through that a few years ago? Oh, of course we did. I try to forget it happened, but you never really forget. You just push it to the back of your mind. One thing about this year's fire season that bothers me is all the rain that fell virtually statewide in 2015 and in some areas, like mine, in 2016. Record rainfall led to record growth of brush, so anywhere that we are having fires, we seem to have tons more smoke than usual and also more trouble than usual containing the fires. And, also, just more trouble reaching fires in inaccessible areas because all the new growth of brush the last couple of years has impeded access in our worst areas. If you cannot reach the fires, you surely cannot put them out. The abnormally hot, dry winter weather makes things so much worse as it sucks up what little moisture does fall. We had good rainfall here in January---too much, in fact, and started off pretty good in February. Then it just basically stopped. Uh oh. That's a bad sign. Dawn