Recent rainfall has helped, but has yet to remove Greene County from the grip of an ongoing drought, area weather experts say.

Through 7 a.m. Thursday, 3.36 inches of rain had fallen this month at the University of Tennessee's Research and Education Center on East Allens Bridge Road, according to Rob Ellis, the center's director.

But despite that rainfall amount, Ellis said, a rainfall deficit of 8.86 inches for the year remained.

Normal precipitation for the center, based on a recently recalculated 30-year average, is 44.28 inches, Ellis noted. Only 35.42 inches of rain had been measured for the year at the Research and Education Center, he said.

But the current rainfall situation is an improvement over 2007, according to the center's records, which show that only 25.45 inches of rain fell there during all of 2007, or about 10 inches less than this year.

"We're still quite a bit behind," Ellis said. "I'm happy for the rainfall we've gotten, but my biggest concern is subsoil moisture."

He noted over the past two years a rainfall deficit of more than 25 inches has existed at the center.

Ellis said he fears that unless there is increased rainfall and snowfall over the coming winter months, drought conditions could be more severe next summer.

Ellis, however, said some points in Greene County got more rainfall this year than did the area where the center is located.

A national drought map, he noted, indicates that while all of Greene County remains in drought conditions, those conditions are more stringent in the southern part of the county.

The Web site of the National Weather Service's Morristown office notes that the period of December through May likely will be critical to improving drought conditions here.

"The remainder of December is expected to be near normal for temperatures and precipitation," the Weather Service Web site said. "The period of January through March is expected to be warmer than normal with about normal precipitation, which, if this verifies, would mean more rain than snow, in general.

"We are in the season where frequent fronts and more widespread rainfall are more typical. The typically 'rainy' season lasts from December through about May, so this season will determine to a great extent how the drought will behave in the near future.

"The latest outlook (issued Dec. 4) is for the drought to improve region-wide."

The Weather Service in Morristown is not scheduled to issue another update on drought conditions until about Jan. 16.

Milton Orr, director of Greene County's University of Tennessee Extension office said he is not ready to say that recent rains have broken the back of the drought.

"Some regions of the county have gotten as much as five inches, but others have gotten as little as an inch," Orr said. "That certainly has helped and will move us back toward where we need to be. But we're not there yet. If you dug down, you would still find some dry ground."

Orr noted that "slow, gentle rains" such as those that have fallen recently have done much to improve topsoil moisture levels, but have done little to improve the levels of water in farm ponds.

"We didn't have much runoff (from rains) until yesterday," Orr said on Thursday. "It takes runoff to improve the levels ponds."

Orr said he still is concerned about the levels of sub-soil moisture in many pastures and farm fields across the county.

He noted that as soon as top soil is dry enough to allow farmers to use tractors in their fields he thinks they should begin aerating and "sub-soiling" fields in an effort to allow more moisture to enter the ground.

Although significant rainfall has fallen, Orr said, more is needed.

"One old timer told me this week that it has been so dry for so long that we've forgotten what 'real muddy' is like," Orr said. "It hasn't gotten real muddy yet."

Bill Brown, director of the Greeneville-Greene County Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security, said that volunteers with his agency had begun, on Oct. 29, distributing bottled drinking water to county residents whose water wells had gone dry or become muddy.

As of Wednesday, volunteers had distributed 3,596 gallons of bottled drinking water that had been contributed by the Greeneville Premium Waters, Inc., plant.

Brown said that on Wednesday, volunteers distributed 238 gallons of bottled drinking water to representatives of 14 county households composed of some 34 people.

The most recent drinking water distribution total, Brown said, was down considerably from the previous week when 553 gallons of water were distributed.

On Thursday, Brown said he did not know why the most recent distribution amount was smaller than had been normal. He noted that volunteers had been distributing between 400 and 550 gallons of bottled water each week since Oct. 29.

Brown said that due to the Christmas holiday, drinking water distribution will be conducted on Tuesday, Dec. 23, instead of Wednesday, Dec. 24, as would have been usual.

Water is normally distributed at the So-Pak-Co warehouse on West Irish Street between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. on Wednesdays.