Genesis 8:13
“And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry.”
KJV
Read in Genesis 8Meaning
Noah sees that the surface has dried and removes the ark covering as the recession nears completion.
Read carefully
Surface dryness here should not be collapsed into the fuller drying explicitly described in the following verse.
Reflection
Visible improvement can be real while the process is still incomplete.