Despite recent rain across the state the drought continues. The U.S. Drought Monitor says that almost half of the state is in what it calls a "severe drought."
Leonard Vaughan of the National Weather Service in Columbia says with the exception of coastal counties the rest of the state continues to be very dry.
Vaughan says the problem is not just this year’s dry summer and fall, but the repeated cycles of drought South Carolina has been experiencing. Over the past twenty years drought in the state has been significant.