Overview of current drought conditions around the country.
'Farmers are reporting nothing but dust'
More than a third of U.S. now seized by choking drought
By Dahleen Glanton
Tribune national correspondent
Published June 19, 2007
ATLANTA -- North and South Carolina are fighting over a river. In Tennessee, springs are drying up, jeopardizing production of Jack Daniel's whiskey. The mayor of Los Angeles is asking residents to take shorter showers. And in Georgia, the governor is praying for rain.
More than a third of the United States is in the grip of a menacing drought that threatens to make its way into Illinois and other Midwestern states before the summer ends.
While much of the West has experienced drought conditions for close to a decade, the latest system is centered over Alabama and extends to much of the Southeast, heavily affecting Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, North and South Carolina and Virginia, as well as parts of Arkansas and West Virginia.
A level D4 drought, the most extreme level charted and the worst in the nation, covers northern Alabama and touches parts of Mississippi, Tennessee and Georgia. Severe drought conditions are moving north, into Kentucky and closer to Illinois.
"It's one of the worst droughts in living memory in the Southeast at this point," said Doug LeComte, a drought specialist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "This happens only about every 50 years or so."
