ST. LOUIS – The nation’s worst drought in decades is showing no sign of letting up in several key Midwest farming states, worrying farmers harvesting the summer’s withered corn crop in record time that their winter crops may also be at risk.

Overall drought conditions in the lower 48 states held steady over the seven-day period ending Tuesday, with about one-fifth of the total land area in extreme or exceptional drought, the two worst classifications, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor’s weekly update of its
drought map released Thursday.

Conditions worsened, though, in Kansas and Iowa, the nation’s biggest corn producer, and nearly 98 percent of Nebraska still was deemed to be in one of the two worst categories.