While much of the Northeast has been battling weeks of storms and flooding, the American West is drying up. The National Drought Mitigation Center, housed at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, released a stark map Thursday that shows that fully one-third of the country is battling drought. Not only that, but in parts of Missouri and Kansas, areas suffering "exceptional drought" are expanding: US #Drought Monitor 8 16 18: Drought is coverage up slightly this week to just over 36% of the area of the Lower 48 states, with exceptional drought (brown, D4) expanding in Missouri and Kansas.