Drought Still Grips West

As spring approaches, the drought hangs on:

U.S. farmers will plant crops this spring under the shadow of a persistent drought that grips prime farmland from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains, with grain supplies already tight from drought losses in 2012.
In all, 56 percent of the contiguous United States is under moderate to exceptional drought, twice the usual amount, the Senate Agriculture Committee was told on Thursday.
Arid weather was expected to run until May in the wheat-growing Plains and in the western Corn Belt, where corn and soybeans are the major crops.
"In fact, we are forecasting drier conditions," said Roger Pulwarty, director of the National Integrated Drought Information System, a federal agency. Above-normal rainfall benefited the southern Plains at the start of this year....Some 59 percent of winter wheat was under drought conditions, said Joe Glauber, Agriculture Department chief economist. "While that also implies that spring planting may be affected by drought conditions as well, there have been improvements in the eastern Corn Belt, where many areas are no longer experiencing drought."

We're sitting ok around here.  With our soil types, if we get much precipitation in the winter, it is still going to be fairly wet as the cold recedes.