SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KCAU) — After some healthy rainfall late last week and into the weekend, some areas have seen improvement in drought conditions. However, those improvements are few and far between.

The soaking rains brought between 1-3″ rainfalls across a large portion of Siouxland, with lighter, lesser totals, between half an inch and an inch of rain to the north and east of the Sioux City metro.

Some notable rain totals include here in Sioux City where 3.12″ of precipitation were recorded out at Sioux Gateway Airport from Thursday, September 21st through Saturday September 23rd. 3.95″ of rain was measured in Pierce Nebraska and between 2 to 2.5″ of rain was measured throughout northeast Nebraska, including in Burt and Cuming counties.

Those soaking rains resulted in small decreases in coverage of extreme drought, including in northwestern Woodbury County where those area improved from extreme drought to severe drought.

Elsewhere, southern Union County in SE South Dakota improved from Severe to Moderate drought and northern Dakota County in NE Nebraska saw improvement from extreme to severe drought.

Most other areas remain unchanged with the latest drought monitor update, although as a whole, Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota all saw improvements in most, if not all categories.

This latest update indicates 99.99% of Iowa at least abnormally dry, an increase of 0.18% from the last update, but still improvement as all other categories decreased in coverage.

In Nebraska, overall drought coverage decreased to 64.95% of the state, a 4.06% decrease in drought coverage with the remaining 35.05% considered not in drought.

In South Dakota, abnormally dry coverage decreased by 5.14%, with now only 42.19% of the state categorized as abnormally dry or worse. However, the state still maintains having no area considered to be in either extreme or exceptional drought.

Looking at the entire Missouri River Basin, 57.8% of the area is not in drought or experiencing drought conditions at this time while 42.19% of the region is in some stage of drought.

Finally, nationally, 56.35% of the United States is at minimum, abnormally dry, seeing an increase in coverage of 0.78% from the previous update. Moderate drought has also increased in coverage, however Severe, Extreme, and Exceptional drought have decreased in coverage across the U.S since last week’s update.

Unfortunately, these improvements may be short-lived, with latest Climate Prediction Center (CPC) outlooks leaning below average for precipitation across Siouxland over the next 6 to 14 days, through the first few weeks of October. Latest CPC outlooks also show equal chances of above or below average precipitation for the month of October, and based on their weekly outlooks, it is looking like it could lean towards below average precipitation. So don’t be surprised to see drought conditions once again worsen.