One thing about summertime storm patterns, and something you noted recently, is even when regional droughts or dry periods subside, rarely without a widespread rain (usually a tropical system) are all areas equal within that region. So localized droughts can develop and persist while regionally it appears to be getting better. Last year my farm in Franklin county was in one of those holes. We had a 7 week stretch where my farm picked up 0.27” of rain total. We lost most of our soybean crop and our tobacco was severely stunted. This while areas such as rolesville and spring hope (both within 10 minutes) seemed to get thunderstorms every day. Even the airport which is about a mile from my observing site had a couple inches of rain, mostly from two storms where we caught the edge just to get what we got. I do not recall what the drought monitor looked like but I do remember being frustrated that it was not reflective of my personal location just bc it was so localized. Thankfully this year we’ve had several rainy periods, a tropical system, and have hit the afternoon storm lottery jackpot more than we’ve missed at the farm, so everything looks amazing this year. But just echoing your sentiments about how a localized drought can be frequent this time of year due to the inconsistent distribution of pop up storm and rainfall this time of year