PIERRE — Heavy rains over the last seven days and over places that needed rain has led to improvement on this week’s update of the U-S Drought Monitor in South Dakota. Drought conditions are pretty hard to find in West River South Dakota. Ziebach County saw drought free areas expand from 24-percent to 81-percent and abnormally dry areas go down from 75-percent to 19-pecrent. Moderate drought was eliminated. Haakon County went from 55-percent to 84-percent no drought and 44-percent to 15-percent abnormally dry. Jackson County is now 100-percent drought free. Dewey County abnormally dry conditions drop by 32-percent. Stanley County is now 31-percent drought free and 68-percent abnormally dry. Hughes County remained at least abnormally dry but saw moderate drought decrease to 43-percent. The worst drought in Brule County, extreme drought was eliminated this week, but the county remains in 100-percent moderate drought.
