Drought conditions expanded some across Alabama this week — and they could get worse with no widespread rain on the horizon.

The U.S. Drought Monitor released its weekly snapshot of U.S. drought conditions on Thursday, and it showed drought conditions expanding across the the state in the past week.

Only 21.58 percent of Alabama is not abnormally dry or in drought, according to this week’s report.

The Drought Monitor uses four categories of drought, from D1 — the least intense — to D4, the most.

According to the Monitor, 78.42 percent of the state is in D0 conditions, an increase from 77.29 percent last week. The D0 category means those areas are abnormally dry and could be entering or recovering from drought.

The report said 30.60 percent of Alabama is in the D1 category, which is considered moderate drought. That’s an increase from 24.40 percent last week.

Just more than 16 percent (16.04) is in the D2 category, or severe drought. That’s up from 10.86 last week.

And 2.30 percent of Alabama is experiencing D3 drought, or extreme drought. That’s unchanged from last week.

No part of Alabama is in the most severe drought category, D4 or exceptional drought. The last time Alabama was in exceptional drought was 2016, according to data from the USDM.

The driest spots in the state are in southwest Alabama’s Mobile, Escambia and Conecuh counties, parts of which are in the D3 drought.

Much of the rest of southwest Alabama is in severe (D2) drought, and drought conditions stretch across the southern part of the state.

Part of northeast Alabama is in moderate (D1) drought. Much of west Alabama is abnormally dry (D0) as well, according to the report.

It doesn’t look like drought conditions will back off in the next week. The seven-day rainfall outlook from NOAA’s Weather Prediction Center (shown below) shows little to no rain in the forecast for most of the state through the next seven days.

The only exception is north Alabama, which could get a little bit of rain.