Drought update: Localized rains helpful, but most of us are still high and dry

The Virginia Drought Monitoring Task Force has lifted the drought watch advisory in its Big Sandy region, which covers a wide swath of Southwest Virginia.

The status for the rest of us: unchanged.

According to a release from the task force issued today, sustained rain has prevented drought conditions from worsening, but.

It was most beneficial in the Big Sandy area, with localized storms dumping 3-5 inches of rain over the past week.

Over the past 30 days, precipitation has been notably low from Staunton through Lynchburg to Danville, and eastward across the Chowan, Southeast Virginia, and Northern Coastal Plain drought evaluation regions, where totals are only 50 percent to 75 percent of normal.

The seven-day forecast calls for near or slightly-above-normal totals of 0.75 to 1.25 inches in southeast areas of the state. Precipitation totals generally decrease moving westwards, with below-normal seven-day totals of 0.25 to 0.50 inches expected in northern and southwestern Virginia.