CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The United States Drought Monitor gets updated weekly on Thursdays. Without fail, if there's been recent rain, the WCNC Charlotte Weather Impact team is asked, "How can we still be in a drought?"

Well, it's because it's based on way more than just rainfall! It shows the rarity of dryness or drought for specific areas at different times of the year.

Curtis Riganti, a climatologist at the National Drought Mitigation Center , explains the levels are based on percentiles. Riganti said they use percentiles to rank current weather and climate and hydrology data, such as precipitation deficits and surpluses.

"We're looking at things like stream flow, soil moisture, we're ranking all of that data by percentile," he explained.

Percentiles may seem complicated if you haven’t ta

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