Arkansas Storm Team Blog: The latest drought monitor & this week’s rain

As of Thursday, September 25, the latest drought monitor was released. It shows moderate, severe, and extreme drought remains in Arkansas. But it doesn’t take into account any rain that fell this week after Tuesday, September 23, at 8 a.m. C.D.T. It does indicate that northwestern Arkansas has improved to near normal conditions, now out of every drought monitor category in parts of Benton, Washington, Madison, Caroll, Newton, Johnson, and Franklin Counties. However, only 7.5% of Arkansas is not in any drought category on the latest drought monitor.

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The yellow shading above indicates the area is abnormally dry, in a category right before full-on drought conditions develop. This expands through a lot of western and central Arkansas. Moderate drought conditions are indicated in tan, accounting for 55.9% of the state this week. In severe drought, in orange, there’s 24.8% of the state. Extreme drought remains on the table in Arkansas this week, too, making up 1.9% of the state in the red shading.

The only remaining chance for rain in the next week is Thursday. Trace amounts are possible in eastern Arkansas. These totals won’t help ongoing drought conditions very much, but at this point, Arkansas will take what it can get from the atmosphere.

June through September are generally some of the driest months of the year in Arkansas. Last year, there was also an ongoing drought for many Arkansans. However, this year’s drought is worse. One year ago from the current drought monitor, Arkansas had 30.8% of the state in moderate drought, 2.5% of the state in severe drought, and no areas in extreme drought. Exactly 3 months ago (on June 24, 2025), the state was 100% drought-free.