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Rain helps alleviate drought, but is too late to help crops

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The storm system that left Colorado dealing with historic flooding also dropped rain across a large swath of the nation from Wisconsin to Texas helping to alleviate drought conditions in some areas of the country.

The rain has come too late to help most of the corn and soybeans.

The weekly drought monitor released Thursday says 45 percent of the United States is in moderate drought or worse a decline from 48 percent the week before.

In Iowa, 5 percent of the state is now experiencing no drought an improvement of about two percentage points from the week before.

In Nebraska, the area of the state in extreme drought fell to 11 percent from 21 percent the previous week. It's the smallest area in extreme drought since July 2012.

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