A drought has developed across the southern U.S. and much of the Midwest, and it' s likely to get worse in many areas before it goes away, the government said Monday. It's going to take a large, large amount of precipitation to end the drought and we don't see anything on the horizon to bring that in, said Jack Kelly, director of the National Weather Service, which released its first-ever drought forecast. But this is the first year the government has attempted to forecast where and how droughts will develop.
Scientists say that more sophisticated data collection is making that possible.