Climate Central: For anyone living east of the Mississippi River, where major tornado outbreaks, torrential rainfall and flooding have been the headlines of the past week, it's hard to imagine that 40 percent of the U.S. is experiencing some level of abnormally dry conditions, many of them extreme.
Though the overall spread of dry conditions across the U.S. has diminished slightly over recent weeks, and about 15 percent over the past year, the drought hotspots in the West remain desiccated.
The driest places...