Even though some parts of Oklahoma have received significant rain over the last 30 days, other locations have missed out, causing the drought to worsen and expand.
The image above, courtesy the Oklahoma Mesonet, shows the percentage of rainfall over the last 30 days, compared to a 30-year average. The areas highlighted in green show above-average rain and the areas in yellow and orange show below-average rain. If you look closely, you can see parts of central and northwestern Oklahoma have only received 20 to 40 percent of average rainfall.
If you click on the related content, you can see how long parts of the Sooner State have gone with less than .25 inches of rain. It has been over 40 days for Oklahoma City and up to almost 70 days for parts of the panhandle.
Since last week, the area of severe drought in Oklahoma has only expanded by about 3 percent. If parts of western Oklahoma do not receive significant rainfall soon, the drought that area is expected to expand much more rapidly.
Even though December is one of the driest months for Oklahoma, significant rain is expected in the next five days, with the bulk of it falling across the eastern half of the state.