Nearly two-thirds of Schuylkill County continues to see moderate drought conditions.
However, the heavy rain on Independence Day and expected rain on Friday could help reduce the number of people in the area experiencing drought conditions.
According to the US Drought Monitor, 61.67% of Schuylkill County is seeing moderate drought conditions, as of July 3. The entire county is still abnormally dry for this time of year.
Central Schuylkill County and eastward are the areas currently believed to be seeing those moderate drought conditions. The rest of the area is considered abnormally dry.
Last year at this time, 100% of Schuylkill County was seeing moderate drought conditions.
By next week, we could see these conditions improve slightly, especially after much of Schuylkill County received some much-needed rainfall, albeit for a short time, on the Fourth of July and a bit more on Friday, July 5.
For all of Pennsylvania in the past week, some areas had their drought status improve but in extreme southern Franklin County, severe drought was declared.
Weekly drought conditions are released by the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in conjunction with the US Dept. of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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