(NewsDakota.com/NAFB) – The Weekly Drought Monitor showed above-normal precipitation and below-normal temperatures resulting in another week of some improvements in the western U.S. The exception is the Pacific Northwest, where drought conditions continue to worsen along the northern Cascade Mountains. The monitor shows a mix of improving and worsening conditions in the Great Plains. Improvements are confined mainly in the western Great Plains. The Corn Belt is seeing widespread degradation of moderate drought and abnormal dryness. High evaporation rates have resulted in significant loss of soil moisture. Any rainfall over the past week in the Southeast U.S. fell in areas that didn’t need it. Virginia is showing moderate drought and abnormal dryness is showing in other locations through the southeast. The Southern U.S. has more mixed totals. Locations in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee experienced increasing dryness. In western parts of the Southern Plains, pockets of heavy rainfall continued adding to 60-day precipitation surpluses.