Exceptional drought has returned to Texas.

Last year at this time, nearly the entire state was free of any drought stage. On Friday, about 4.5 percent of the state was in exceptional drought, the most severe stage on the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Parts or all of as many as 20 counties in the northern portion of South Texas are in exceptional drought, including Bexar, Travis, Bastrop and Hays counties.

There were no areas of Texas in the most severe category late last month.

The first six months of the year were the 23rd driest on record, said Victor Murphy, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Fort Worth. The statewide average was 10.94 inches, 2.93 inches below the normal of 13.87.

Ninety-two percent of the state was in some drought state on the map released Thursday. Those areas without any drought designation are in the far eastern and far western Panhandle, the northern part of the South Plains and in northeast Texas.

In the past seven years, Texas has been on a roller coaster in the first six months of each. While 2004 and 2007 were in the top 10 wettest, 2002, 2003, 2005 and this year are in the driest 20 percentile.

"Does normal ever happen?" Murphy said.

Parts of the state are above normal for July rainfall. El Paso has had three times its normal rainfall so far this month. The normal is less than an inch; the city has 2.15 inches so far in July. Lubbock is also a little bit ahead of its normal.

Both are feeling some influence of the monsoon season that is west of a line between Albuquerque, N.M., and the Guadalupe Mountains in Far West Texas.

"The monsoon has been very, very beneficial to West Texas, southern New Mexico and most of Arizona," Murphy said.

The state is also having some hot temperatures this year. June was the sixth warmest on record, and the January through June period was the 19th warmest, running 1.5 degrees about the normal of 61.8 degrees.

Lubbock has yet to have a 100-degree day this month, though it had seven days in June that climbed into triple digits.

Cotton producers need heat to mature their plants and are hoping the temperatures climb next month.

August is a critical month for heat demand," said Steve Verett, a spokesman for the Plains Cotton Growers, which serves a 41-county region. "And we're hopeful that we'll have the normal heat accumulation" to help the crop.