Extreme drought levels no longer reported in Minnesota after latest round of snow, rain

While many Minnesotans didn’t enjoy the early spring snowstorm this week, the system greatly improved drought conditions across the state.

The latest report released by the U.S. Drought Monitor shows extreme drought is no longer reported in the far southeast part of the state, which had been under that category for months.

The weekly report, published early Thursday morning, includes precipitation in its data that has fallen by 7 a.m. Tuesday. As previously reported by 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS, some areas in Minnesota and western Wisconsin saw snowfall totals in the double digits from Sunday through Monday.

RELATED: Winter weather event helps alleviate some drought concerns

Extremely dry or worse conditions cover more than 98.6% of the entire state — only 1.38% of Minnesota isn’t considered to be experiencing any kind of dryness.

The entire Twin Cities metro is still listed as experiencing abnormally dry conditions.

Severe drought conditions have decreased from 12.42% to 11.43% and cover the southeast corner as well as parts of north-central Minnesota over to the northwest corner. Moderate drought is reported in much of the same regions but covers 43.37% of the state, down more than 20% from last week’s report.

In Wisconsin, drought conditions are a fraction of what they were – last week, just over 19% of the state was in a severe drought, but that level is now being reported in just 5.99% of the state. Meanwhile, moderate drought conditions – or worse- is down from 72.32% to 31.55%.

In addition, nearly 14% of Wisconsin isn’t experiencing any kind of drought condition.