Drought

Recently, at work, we were talking about the drought in the south, but weren't sure about how bad it really was.

Walking around Charlotte, I could see fountains run dry and signs extolling the hotels commitment to not using up all the water. When I tuned into the news, the big story was "The Big Drought". There were experts taking people's calls with questions and concerns about the drought. A map came up showing a grave situation from the top of North Carolina, down to Florida. Severe, Extreme, and Exceptional covered the screen. Sound bytes from Representatives from Georgia and Florida mention running our of water, or being in dire straits by March. Of course, with any long term drought, comes the risk of fire.

So, the situation does sound bad down here. Although, I have to ask the obvious question; how much of this is reality and how much of this is fear mongering?

Edit:
Some images I found on Google Image Search:
Weather Underground
mindfully.org