Central Iowa received a little bit of a drink of water overnight…1.2 inches in ames and 63-hundreths of an inch in Marshalltown, it’s gonna take a lot of those drinks to catch us up on our rainfall and soil moisture.

State climatologist Justin Glisan says the new drought maps released late this week show drought conditions widening and getting more severe, especially across Iowa’s northern half. Plus it’s tough to get a handle on what’s in store

The map shows at least parts of 22 Iowa counties are now in extreme drought, which covers more than ten percent of the state, up from around seven-percent last week. Fifty-five percent of the state is now in some level of drought, while almost 79-percent of Iowa ranges from abnormally dry to extreme drought. Only a few counties in southwest Iowa and most of the southern two tiers of counties are untouched by the dry weather.