Fully one-third of America is in a drought

Drought in California.
(Image credit: NOAH BERGER/AFP/Getty Images)

While much of the Northeast has been battling weeks of storms and flooding, the American West is drying up.

The National Drought Mitigation Center, housed at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, released a stark map Thursday that shows that fully one-third of the country is battling drought. Not only that, but in parts of Missouri and Kansas, areas suffering "exceptional drought" are expanding:

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Kimberly Alters

Kimberly Alters is the news editor at TheWeek.com. She is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.