Slowly but surely, the Stateline has been climbing out of recent drought conditions. Even though we ended 2025 on a dry note with 9.5" below normal precipitation, much of the precipitation over the last two months came in the form of snow, with 10.0" of snow in November and 9.2" of snow December. That snow was slower to soak into the ground than the liquid equivalent of rain would've been. You can see how the snow depth at the Rockford airport has shown gradual melting from the large snow we got right at the end of November. Much of December featured smaller snows here and there which melted quickly.
Drought conditions have been steadily improving since late November, when much of NW Illinois was under Moderate or Severe Drought conditions. Those have since been shrinking, as now only a small part of Green, Jo Daviess, and Stephenson Counties are under Severe Drought conditions. The entire Stateline remains underneath at least Abnormally Dry conditions. Compare the most recent drought monitor to last week below.
The next 7 days does not feature substantial rainfall outside of the soaking rain we saw earlier this afternoon. So, we may not be able to expect a great deal of improvements for next week's drought monitor. But I don't expect it to worsen either. Hopefully we can get a few more soaking rains through springtime to pull us completely out of the drought conditions.
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