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Following Hurricane Irma’s arrival in Florida on September 10 and subsequent demise across the Southeast, generally dry weather dominated the country for a few days.  However, the first two significant autumn storms of the season arrived across the northern Plains and Northwest, starting on September 14.  Eventually, precipitation fell as far south as the Intermountain West and eastward into the upper Midwest.  Several areas of the country, however, remained mostly dry and continued to see mounting short-term rainfall deficits.  As a result, portions of the central and southern Plains, as well as the mid-South and lower Midwest, experienced general increases in the coverage of dryness and drought.  In mid-September, there was an abrupt weather-pattern change that not only provided the northern Plains and Northwest with much-needed precipitation, but also brought a warming trend to the eastern half of the nation and notably cooler weather to the West.