Drought conditions spread slightly over the last week, covering nearly 55 percent of the country.

Heavy rains in the Northeast alleviated dry conditions in some areas there, but severe, extreme and exceptional drought conditions got worse across the country, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor released this morning.

More than 35 percent of the country is now in a severe drought, the map shows, and the percentage of the country experiencing extreme conditions rose to 18 percent.

Looking just at the continental United States, 65 percent of the land is afflicted by drought -- the most ever registered by the Drought Monitor, according to Brian Fuchs, a climatologist at the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

The report predicts much-needed rain for the Texas Panhandle, Oklahoma and southern Kansas over the next week, although hard-hit drought areas in the eastern Dakotas, eastern Nebraska and the Upper Mississippi Valley/Upper Great Lakes region are expected to remain dry.