A new report shows that widespread rain is gradually relieving the Deep South’s ongoing drought, leaving only a handful of counties in Alabama and Georgia with extreme drought conditions.

A national report on the drought released Thursday found that rain drenched a large part of an area that has been abnormally dry, from northern Louisiana to the Carolinas and Virginia.

The U.S. Drought Monitor shows that about a half-dozen counties in the northeastern Georgia mountains and patches of another half-dozen counties in central Alabama are still dealing with extreme drought.

Extreme drought also remains in parts of southeast Oklahoma and western Arkansas.

The report says drier-than-normal weather is expected to dominate most of the nation through Monday.

(AP)