Is the Drought Over?

Droughts are like a recession in a way, its hard to tell exactly when they first occur and hard to know exactly when they are over. With all our recent rains, however, the drought does appear to be finally waning a bit.

I will try to illustrate the current drought from four images I found. First the bad, then the good.

1. We still lack rain. This image shows the precipitation deficit since Oct 1, 2007.


2. This image shows what the drought looked like at the beginning of the year. Red is not a good color to see.
3. Current Drought Monitor image shows substantial improvement.4. Here is the official drought outlook. Hope?