Cracked dirt, dying crops, boat docks out of water and dry, dusty streambeds. For many communities in the U.S., drought impacts are becoming ever-present and increasingly dire.
It didn’t get that way overnight, though. During long stretches of sunny weather with blue skies overhead, the last thing on your mind is probably drought. Drought often creeps in quietly, without the visual cues that accompany severe storms or other extreme weather, but its impacts can be just as, if not more, devastating than any storm.
Luckily, NOAA and its partners track drought and dryness with the U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM). The USDM is a vital public resource that is used by policymakers, researchers, and the public to monitor drought conditions. It assists with drought mitigation efforts and determines eligibility for farmers and ranchers who need federal disaster assistance.
The Map…the Drought…the Legend. What is the USDM?
The USDM produces a map every Thursday that shows the location and intensity of drought across the U.S. and its territories. Because drought affects different people in different ways, it is often said that “drought is defined by those it impacts”. For instance, a farmer's experience of drought will look very different from that of a water supply manager or a homeowner watering their home garden. As a result, the USDM captures multiple types of drought on a single map.
To account for these different perspectives, experts categorize drought into several distinct types:
- Meteorological Drought is determined by a lack of precipitation and how conditions like temperature and winds affect moisture levels. It is region-specific and expressed in relation to a region's average historical conditions.
- Agricultural Drought focuses on precipitation shortages, soil moisture deficits, and evaporative demand, and its severity depends heavily on soil properties, plant types and stages of plant growth.
- Hydrological Drought refers to the effects of rain and snow shortfalls on streamflow, groundwater, and reservoir or lake levels. Because it takes longer for precipitation deficiencies to show up in larger hydrological systems, this type of drought is often "lagging" behind other types of drought. (i.e., the 2003 Pathfinder Reservoir shortage).
- Ecological Drought occurs when prolonged/widespread shortages in naturally available water supplies create multiple cascading stresses across ecosystems (i.e., ponds drying up and impacting cattle).
- Socio-economic Drought describes the impact of drought on the broader economy related to supply and demand. While it includes agricultural products, it also affects hydroelectric energy generation, tourism, public health and infrastructure.
- Snow Drought is a period of abnormally low seasonal snowpack due to lack of precipitation or unusually warm temperatures, which causes precipitation to fall as rain rather than snow or causes the accumulated snowpack to melt unusually early. In many mountainous regions, especially the western U.S., snowpack acts as a vital "natural reservoir". It stores water during the winter and slowly releases it as snowmelt during the drier spring and summer months, affecting both human and natural systems.
The USDM Categories and What They Mean
The map is categorized into five classifications: Abnormally Dry (D0), which is not a drought category but indicates areas either heading into or recovering from drought, followed by Moderate Drought (D1), Severe Drought (D2), Extreme Drought (D3), and Exceptional Drought (D4).
To standardize this mountain of complex data, the USDM categorizes drought using a historical percentile ranking system. A percentile is a simple way to measure how rare an event is by comparing current conditions to a 100-year historical record. For example, Hurricane Helene was considered a 1-in-1000 year event for Asheville, North Carolina.
Dryness/Drought Intensity Categories
D0 (Abnormally Dry): 21st to 30th percentile. This means conditions are among the driest 21 to 30 years out of 100. It is not technically a drought yet, but rather an early warning sign that an area is drying out, or a sign that an area is recovering from drought but still has lingering deficits.
D1 (Moderate Drought): 11th to 20th percentile. This represents a 1-in-5 to 1-in-10-year drought event. In this first official stage of drought, regions typically experience some damage to crops and pastures. Streams, reservoirs or wells may run low, meaning water shortages are developing or imminent.
D2 (Severe Drought): 6th to 10th percentile. This is a rarer 1-in-10 to 1-in-20-year drought event. As conditions worsen, crop or pasture loss becomes likely. Water shortages become common across the affected area.
D3 (Extreme Drought): 3rd to 5th percentile. This level of dryness is only expected 3 to 5 times every 100 years. At this intense level, agriculture experiences major crop and pasture losses. Communities face widespread water shortages.
D4 (Exceptional Drought): 0 to 2nd percentile. This is the most severe USDM category. For the everyday person, this means the current dryness is a historic, 1-in-50-year (or rarer) event. When a region reaches D4, it signals catastrophic, landscape-altering impacts, widespread crop and pasture losses, and severe water emergencies.
Current Impacts
As of April 2026, the Western U.S. experienced its lowest snowpack on record. Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming set new record-low April 1 snow-water equivalent (SWE) values.
As of June 2026, a late season storm system brought heavy rainfall to southern Oregon and northern California, sparking a few modest improvements but overall doing little to change the current drought depiction. Some degradations were noted across portions of California, Oregon, and the Great Basin, where impacts from a lack of snowmelt recharge—especially low stream flows—are beginning to be felt.
According to the June 21, 2026, USDM, drought signals across much of the southern U.S. remained mixed in regions where long-term deficits continued to persist. Significant water supply concerns continued in southern Georgia and throughout Florida. Reservoirs and lakes that were drawn down substantially over the past year are recovering more slowly than other drought indicators. In the Southeast, water supply concerns and fire danger remain significant, particularly in Florida. Lake Okeechobee remains low, continuing to lose more water than it receives.
In the Plains, impacts have primarily affected winter wheat and forage production, and areas that have remained dry continue to experience elevated fire danger. The most significant change occurred in Minnesota, where the cumulative effects of multiple dry years have affected much of the northern portion of the state, including the headwaters of the Mississippi River. Moderate drought expanded, and severe drought was introduced.
Outlook
Over 60% of the continental U.S. was in drought (D1–D4) as of May 26, making it one of the more extensive drought periods on record (33rd highest among 1,378 weeks since 2000).
According to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center (CPC), the monthly outlook for June indicates that some regions are benefiting from recent rainfall, but large portions of the country remain vulnerable to prolonged dry conditions and associated impacts on agriculture, water resources, and ecosystems. The most serious drought concerns are in the West, Rockies, and parts of the Plains, Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeast, where drought is expected to continue or intensify, while drought is expected to develop in parts of the Midwest. These regions face the greatest risk of continued water shortages, agricultural stress, reduced streamflow, and ecosystem impacts because drought conditions are not expected to improve significantly.
Partners
Established in 1999, the USDM is produced through a joint partnership between the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, NOAA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Meteorologists and climatologists from these agencies serve rotating, two-week shifts as the drought map's lead author. The author’s primary role is to provide the critical human element that automated models cannot replicate: synthesizing complex—and sometimes conflicting—datasets to create a cohesive and accurate assessment of national drought conditions.
