Open thread for night owls: Drought forces designation of 1,000 counties as federal disaster zones

The heat isn't the only problem. At the Atlantic Dashieill Bennett writes:

The blistering summer and ongoing drought conditions have the prompted the U.S. Agriculture Department to declare a federal disaster area in more than 1,000 counties covering 26 states. That's almost one-third of all the counties in the United States, making it the largest distaster declaration ever made by the USDA.

The declaration covers almost every state in the southern half of the continental U.S., from South Carolina in the East to California in the West. It's also includes Colorado and Wyoming (which have been hit by devatasting wildfires) and Illinois, Indiana, Kansas and Nebraska in the Midwest. However, it does not include Iowa, which is the largest grain and corn producer in the U.S. This map shows the counties affected:

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