Roughly 44% of the lower 48 states were in drought on Nov. 3, down from 59% on Sept. 29, according to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. A drop of about 15 points in five weeks left drought coverage at its lowest level since Jan. 27. The relief came mostly from a very wet fall in the Southwest, while the Mississippi and Ohio valleys moved the other way.
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From 59% to 44% between Sept. 29 and Nov. 3
Alaska and Hawaii are drought-free, and Alaska became so on Oct. 27. Coverage is a percentage of land area, so a swing of about 15 points moved a large block of the country out of drought in five weeks. The weekly maps rate conditions from abnormally dry through exceptional drought and focus on broad-scale conditions, so local readings can differ from the national figure. Puerto Rico is improving, though the U.S. Virgin Islands still hold exceptional drought on St. Thomas and St. John and extreme drought on St. Croix, where one gauge recorded its lowest May-October rainfall on record. Those territories sit outside the contiguous-states percentage.
The NCEI October climate summary reports the contiguous-U.S. figure as 44% for Nov. 3, the lowest since Jan. 27, though a key-takeaways box on the same page says only January 2026. The Drought Monitor’s own statistics, carried on the federal Drought.gov conditions page, put the lower 48 at 43.98% for the week, while the page’s own summary line gives 43.4%.
The Southwest and Great Basin turn the corner
The biggest improvements came where the rain was heaviest. NCEI measured the Southwest at 2.68 inches in October, 233% of normal and tied for its fourth-wettest October, and Utah, Colorado, Arizona and Nevada each placed among their ten wettest. The author of the Drought Monitor’s Nov. 5 national summary, Brad Pugh of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, attributes anomalously wet conditions in southern California and the Desert Southwest over the Halloween weekend for one-category improvements from Arizona north to Nevada, Utah and southeastern Idaho.
According to the Drought Monitor’s weekly summary, short-term drought has ended across much of the Southwest and Great Basin, though long-term drought lingers in parts of both. New Mexico improved broadly, western Oklahoma improved, and the remnants of Hurricane Vance dropped enough rain on western and central Texas to earn a one-category improvement. In the Southeast, heavy rain in Florida produced one- and two-category gains, though D1 and D2 remain near Bradenton and Fort Myers and severe drought clings to parts of the Everglades.
The remaining drought is concentrated rather than scattered. NCEI lists persistence in the Pacific Northwest, the Great Basin, parts of the central Rockies and northern Plains, the Upper Midwest, the Mid-Atlantic and the far Northeast. The Drought Monitor adds that the Pacific Northwest and much of California held steady, Montana saw small improvements, and western Colorado and parts of the Northern to Central Plains gained a category.
Mississippi Valley, Midwest and Northeast head the other way
Not every region shared in the improvement. Dry conditions widened through the Mississippi, Ohio and Tennessee river valleys, and severe to exceptional drought persists across Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee, where 60-day rainfall deficits exceed 4 inches. Southern Missouri has widespread severe to extreme drought that grew, and Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri each slipped by a category.
The Northeast also lost ground. Parts of northwestern New Jersey, northern Pennsylvania, the Finger Lakes and New England degraded, and extreme drought was added in Maine’s North Woods, where streamflows are very low. Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia each degraded by one category as well. Minnesota and western Wisconsin improved, and the Nebraska Panhandle no longer has extreme drought.
Outlooks for Nov. 5-14 and the Mississippi Valley
The U.S. Drought Monitor, released Nov. 5 with data valid Nov. 3, credits Pugh for the contiguous states and Curtis Riganti of the National Drought Mitigation Center for the Pacific islands and the Virgin Islands. The summary’s forecast for Nov. 5-9 is mostly drier than normal for the lower 48, apart from heavy rain along the coastal Mid-Atlantic and southeastern New England.
For Nov. 10-14, the six-to-ten-day outlook favors above-normal precipitation for California and the Pacific Northwest, the Great Basin, the Southwest, the Rio Grande Valley and Florida, with drier odds across the Northern to Central Plains, Midwest and Northeast. NCEI’s summary adds that November favors wetter conditions across much of the West, Plains, South and Southeast, and the Climate Prediction Center’s 30-day outlook issued Oct. 31 gives the Mississippi and Ohio valleys, where drought is still expanding, a wetter lean for the month. The same summary expects above-normal temperatures across nearly the whole contiguous country for Nov. 10-14, so any rebound in the Southeast and Northeast would come from rainfall alone. Whether the 44% figure holds, falls again or reverses depends on the Nov. 10 map, due out in the coming days.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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