After a stretch of soggy weather over the past several weeks, the latest drought monitor released on Thursday morning shows an improvement for much of the Brazos Valley in terms of our drought situation.

After several months of being classified as in an "exceptional" drought, this morning's monitor dropped that classification two levels to just a "severe" drought. (Classification D2)

While we are not out of this drought situation completely, this is the best improvement the Brazos Valley has had in about a year's time.

The month of February alone has brought in a staggering 9.30" of rain fall while 2012, as a whole, has collected 12.08". Those two totals are good enough to put this year's rainfall at a surplus of 6.56" along with making this the second wettest start to a calendar year and second wettest February on record. To add a little more perspective, the total amount of rain that fell officially for Bryan / College Station in 2011 was only 19.97".

The U.S. Drought Monitor is updated every Thursday morning around 7:30am central time.