The drought engulfing nearly half the United States shrank slightly this week, with an incremental improvement in the hard-hit High Plains.

Ninety-six percent of that region was gripped by drought last week, but the figure dropped to 94 percent over the past week, with slight decreases in the amount of territory in extreme or exceptional drought, according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor released this morning.

Those improvements were largely offset on the East Coast, where the Southeast saw its share of land in drought increase to a quarter.

Overall, the United States saw its land in drought drop by half a percentage point to just below 50 percent this week. The country saw incremental improvements across all levels of drought.