COLDWATER (WTVB) - Even though Coldwater enjoyed an inch and a half of rainfall Thursday, the U.S. Drought Monitor now says almost all of Branch County is in the Extreme Drought category. Our next best chance of showers is next week with maybe some scattered thunderstorms on Wednesday or Thursday.

Some parts of the parched Midwest have finally gotten soaking rains, but it's too late for some corn crops.  In central Indiana, one farmer says he saw the heaviest rains of the year at his 23-hundred acre farm.  He says the rain is too late for his dried-up corn crop, but he's optimistic that the rain is catching the soybeans at a good time.  Elsewhere in the Midwest, that story is playing out at many other farms today.  More isolated showers elsewhere in the Midwest are coming too late in the season for corn.  Last week, the government cut its corn yield expectations by 12 percent amid crop ratings that are the worst since 1988