Drought conditions have deepened in recent weeks across southern Greene County and conditions are only slightly better in the rest of the county, according to the National Weather Service.

Milton Orr, director of University of Tennessee Extension office here, said during a telephone interview that while the drought situation in southern Greene county is the worst, there also are other extremely dry "pockets" all across the county.

"Southern Greene County has suffered all summer long," Orr said. "But in the last couple of weeks (without any significant rainfall) everyone is starting to suffer," he said.

Orr noted that he remains concerned about a lack of sub-soil moisture across the county as the result of lower than normal rainfall for the year.

With no water reserves in sub-surface soil, he said, county farmers are dependent, more than is normal, on rainfall to keep top soil moist. But recently little rain has fallen, especially in southern Greene County.

As a result, he said, most streams across the county, are far lower than normal and some have dried up completely. "Of course many of our ponds never recovered from last year's drought," he said. "Many have dried up."

But Orr said many farmers who were caught without water for their livestock during last year's drought have since switched to utility water or found other sources for their cattle.

He noted the pasture conditions across Greene County as a whole continue to be rated "poor," although pastures in some sections that have experience more rain than others have fared better.

Looking long-term, Orr said, some extended weather forecasts call for a colder and wetter spring than normal.

"If you're planning to plant crops you don't want to hear that," Orr said. "But we really need the moisture."

But the short-term weather forecasts don't seem to offer a great deal of encouragement.

"Exceptional drought conditions have moved back into the mountains of East Tennessee and into both Clay and Cherokee counties in North Carolina," a notice posed Aug. 21 on Web site of the National Weather Service's Morristown office said.

"In Tennessee this includes the eastern half of Polk county, and the mountains and foothills of Monroe, Blount, Sevier and Cocke counties. It also includes extreme southern Greene and Unicoi counties."

"Exceptional drought" is the National Weather Service term for the driest of drought conditions.

Rainfall has been drastically low since middle-to-late July," the NWS-Morristown Web site said. "Some locations have not had any rain for three to four weeks."

"Extreme drought" conditions, which are classified as one notch less severe on the NWS scale, exist along the entire southern and middle Cumberland Plateau portion of Tennessee.

Those conditions also exist in the rest of Greene County and south and east of a line from near Deer Lodge to Jacksboro to Tazewell to Surgoinsville to Church Hill to Mountain City. This includes the Chattanooga and Knoxville metro areas, and the city of Johnson City and surroundings, according to the NWS.

"Severe" drought conditions, meanwhile, exist in Tennessee counties near the Kentucky and Virginia state lines, according to the NWS Morristown Web site.

In Virginia, severe drought conditions cover the southern halves of Lee and Scott Counties, all of Washington County, and the southern strip of Russell County. This includes the cities of Kingsport and Bristol, Tenn./Va. and surroundings.

The drought information section of the NWS Morristown Web site notes that the NWS observation points at Tri-Cities Regional Airport and the NWS Morristown Office for the period starting Jan. 1, 2007, and continuing through midnight Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008, showed continuing rainfall deficits.

At Tri-Cities Regional Airport, the rainfall deficit stood at 23.69 inches, or 66 percent of normal, for the period that ended Aug. 20.

At the NWS Morristown Office, meanwhile, the rainfall deficit stood at 24.53 inches, or 68 percent of normal.

Rain totals over large areas such as reservoir drainage basins are a much better indicator of an area's "rain health" than simple point totals, according to the NWS Web site.

For the Cherokee Lake drainage basin of which Greene County is a part, NWS data posted on the Morristown NWS Web site indicates a rainfall deficit of 19.78 inches, or 73 percent of normal.

"Through about the end of August, average temperatures in the region are expected to be on the cool side, with rainfall near normal," a precipitation outlook posted on the NWS-Morristown Website notes.

"This, however, will depend on what Tropical Storm Fay does. If it recurves northeast, we stand a good chance of beneficial rains.

"If it stalls, we still might get enough moisture from it to produce some rains. If it continues on west as currently forecast, we might get nothing. Stay tuned.

"Nevertheless, there is a slight chance for some rain each day later in the week. As is the usual case with summertime rain, some places will get it, and some will not."

September is expected to have near-normal temperatures and rain, according to the NWS.

For October through December, the climate outlook is for close to normal for both temperature and rainfall, but there is an outside chance that overall temperatures during this period will be slightly above average, the Web site notes.

"The ramification of this outlook is that near-normal evaporanspiration is expected," the Web site said.

"This means a potential slight drying of the soils, and more stress on plants. The forecast is for the drought to persist, though some improvement may be in store for individual locales of East Tennessee, extreme Southwest Virginia, and Cherokee and Clay counties in North Carolina, with spotty rains."