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U.S. Drought Monitor Update for June 26, 2018

Photo of a sunset at Yellowstone National Park
Courtesy of Pixabay.com

According to the June 26, 2018, U.S. Drought Monitor, moderate to exceptional drought covers 24.1% of the United States, an increase from last week’s 22.7%. Extreme and exceptional drought—the worst categories—held steady, covering about 6.9% of the nation for a second week.

A couple strong upper-level low pressure systems, moving in the jet stream flow, slowly crossed the northern half of the contiguous United States during this U.S. Drought Monitor week. The lows dragged surface lows and frontal systems with them. Supplied with abundant Gulf of Mexico moisture, these systems generated numerous mesoscale thunderstorm complexes which dumped heavy rain across parts of the Plains to Midwest and Mid-Atlantic Coast.

The clouds and rain associated with the lows and fronts also brought cooler-than-normal temperatures to the central Plains to Northeast. A moist low pressure system at the beginning of the week dumped heavy rains along the Texas Gulf coast. Contraction of drought and abnormally dry areas occurred in the Plains and Texas Gulf coast where precipitation was above normal for the week. However, these lows tracked within a larger-scale upper-level ridge system.

Drier-than-normal weather dominated much of the West, large parts of Texas and the Southeast States, and from the western Great Lakes to most of the Northeast, with drought and abnormal dryness expanding in parts of the West, South, and Northeast. The week was warmer than normal across much of the West, along the northern tier states, much of Texas, and most of the Southeast.

Abnormal dryness and drought are currently affecting over 113 million people across the United States—about 36.3% of the country’s population.

Map of U.S. drought conditions for June 26, 2018

The full U.S. Drought Monitor weekly update is available from Drought.gov.

In addition to Drought.gov, you can find further information on the current drought as well as on this week’s Drought Monitor update at the National Drought Mitigation Center.

The most recent U.S. Drought Outlook is available from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center and the U.S. Department of Agriculture provides information about the drought’s influence on crops and livestock.

For additional drought information, follow #DroughtMonitor on Facebook and Twitter.