The most extensive drought in five decades intensified this week across the Midwest and Plains states that produce most of the country's corn, soybeans and livestock, a report from climate experts showed on Thursday.
And the drought is worsening in the South, which was just recovering from last year's drought - the worst Texas had seen in a century.
Almost 30 percent of the nine-state Midwest was suffering extreme drought, nearly triple from the previous week, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor for the week ending July 24.
Conditions in the Midwest, which produces roughly three-quarters of the corn and soybean crops in the world's largest producer and exporter, worsened despite the first measurable rainfall in a month in some areas.
More than 53 percent of the United States and Puerto Rico are in moderate drought or worse, a record-large amount for the fourth straight week in the Drought Monitor's 12-year history.
"The two-plus inches (of rain) from southern Wisconsin to northern Indiana was able to only maintain status quo. Most other areas were not as lucky," said Drought Monitor author Richard Heim of the National Climatic Data Center.
"Pasture, rangeland, and crop condition continued to deteriorate from the Colorado High Plains to the Ohio- and mid-Mississippi valleys, and from Oklahoma to the Dakotas," he said.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/26/us-usa-drought-idUSBRE86N1M120120726
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