Dawn, I have stated before how I didn't understand what it says our rating was. I'm not sure what source the farm programs and our local forecaster use but two stations one in CO and the other in KS said for my area the rating was severe to extreme drought conditions. The one is a Kansas farm report. I believe it was Thursday or Friday I heard this. That is what I would say also. I soak something most every warm day around here. Still have some older established trees to get too. Then will need to start over if something doesn't fall soon. I watered all of my 1-2 y/o trees 2 weeks ago right before the last cold snap so didn't water again this time. This looks to be the coldest of the season. Just hope it is the last one. Jay

This week's Oklahoma Drought Monitor is linked below. Here is a link that might be useful: OK Drought Monitor 01-22-13

Sherri, I wasn't keeping an eye on Harper County last summer, or really on anyone else because I was at fires, often multiple fires, daily, or sometimes all night long. Last July and August are just one big blur in my mind. Without knowing how dry y'all got specifically, I'd bet you were in the upper 700s there, and very close to 800. Both the Altus area and the Durant area were the two areas I noted that were the driest on the KBDI, and they both actually exceeded 800 (which I thought was impossible) by 10 or 12 points. The driest our county got was about 770 or 780, and we had been in D4 well before we hit that point. How dry is that compared to previous droughts? The worst previous drought we'd had in our county since I learned about the KBDI was in 2005-2006, and my county topped out around 680 in that one. We never dreamed, never, ever in our wildest imaginings, we'd ever get 100 points drier than that in some future year. On our worst, hottest day, we were at a fire just on the edge of I-35 in 115 degree weather. Firefighters were dropping like flies and I was really concerned about them. A big storm was moving our way. We could tell it was going to rain. We cleared from that fire just as the storm rolled over our part of the area. We had lots of wind and lightning, and enough rain to drop our KBDI maybe 50 to 70 points the next day. That was the beginning of a downward trend in the KBDI for us. But what "gift" did the thunderstorm bring us? Lightning started fires across the river in Texas and we were called for assistance with those wildfires. lol Sometimes the thunderstorms are more harmful than helpful at times like that. I'll link today's map, and we can see what a change a couple of rainy days can make. I know that in my county we were getting close to 500 and now we're down around 100 after the rain last week and this week. That is such a relief, but we're still having grass fires. They're just slow-moving ones now and there's not many of them the last few days. In my own yard, it becomes hard to keep plants happy after we hit 500. By then our clay is hard like concrete and water just ponds on top of the ground and rolls downhill instead of soaking into the ground. It depends on the time of year, though. A KBDI of 500 in August bothers me more than a KBDI of 600 in December. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Today's KBDI Map--Lots of Improvement

In the below link, you can see the map dated 8-21-2012 and to its right is the map dated 8-14-2012. There's not a huge difference between the two. Maybe with all the rain hitting the country, we'll start to see the drought areas shrinking in the next few weeks. Here is a link that might be useful: Archive Last Week Vs This Week