The Seattle Times 17 July 2012
By Jim Suhr and Steve Karnowski
The Associated Press
The nation’s widest drought in decades is spreading, with more than half of the continental United States in some stage of drought and most of the rest enduring abnormally dry conditions.
In its monthly drought report, the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., announced that 55 percent of the country was in a moderate to extreme drought at the end of June. . . .