By Dar Danielson (Radio Iowa)

The latest report out today shows the amount of drought in Iowa continues to shrink.

The U.S. Drought Monitor shows nearly 53% of the state is now drought free. That compares to September when the entire state was in some sort of drought, and the start of this year when only about three percent of the state had no drought conditions. The driest conditions remain in a line from Mitchell County at the northern border down through 23 other counties in northeast and central Iowa. Those counties all have some level of severe drought.