By Jim McCausland, Sunset senior garden writer

This month about .05 inch of rain fell on my garden, when I would normally expect .86 inch. During the weather year that just ended (July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008), we had 91 percent of expected rainfall. During the 2008 calendar year, we’ve had 61 percent. The trend is not good, and threatens to sink us into the drought that covers most of the West.

You can see drought mapped across the country by going to the U.S. Drought Monitor, whose current weekly map is pictured below. It’s put together by climatologists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

While you’re on the site, have a look at their 6- and 12-week animations, which show that while things are getting worse in the Northwest, they’re improving in Arizona. Must be those summer monsoons that I’m so jealous of.

For more information about detailed historical conditions everywhere in the West, go to the Western Regional Climate Center web site. There you can find, for example, average monthly and yearly precipitation for most significant western cities and towns (and lots of insignificant ones too); average high and low temperatures, plus extremes going back a century or more in many cases; average dates of first and last frost; and lots more information that gardeners depend on.