Widespread rain is gradually relieving the Deep South’s ongoing drought, leaving only a handful of counties in Alabama and Georgia with extremely dry conditions, a new report shows.

All of Hall County is now in severe drought, an improvement from figures released last week that showed the whole county in extreme drought.

Almost all of Habersham and White counties remain in extreme drought, with the far northern portions of Dawson and Lumpkin also in extreme drought.

Rain drenched a large part of an area that has been abnormally dry, from northern Louisiana to the Carolinas and Virginia, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor released Thursday.

About a half-dozen counties in the northeast Georgia mountains and patches of another half-dozen counties in central Alabama are still dealing with extreme drought, the report shows, as are parts of southeast Oklahoma and western Arkansas.

The drought is approaching the one-year mark. Abnormally dry conditions began showing up in March 2016 in parts of the South, and intensified through the spring, summer and fall.

Despite the recent heavy rains, drier-than-normal weather is expected to dominate most of the nation through Monday, forecasters project.