State climatologist David Stooksbury said Wednesday that drought has returned to many parts of the state that had emerged from dry conditions last year, including swaths of south Georgia. Some 102 counties are in moderate drought, and parts of northeast Georgia are still mired in "severe" and "extreme" conditions.

Stooksbury says most of the state has received less than half of normal rain over the last 30 days. He says that unless the state receives significant rain through April the state "is primed for another year of drought."