United States Drought Monitor — weekly drought status by area
The weekly assessment of where the United States is in drought and how severely, published since 2000. A rotating author each week combines precipitation, soil moisture, streamflow, reservoir and snowpack indicators with reports from a network of local observers, which makes it an expert judgement rather than a computed index — and distinct from any single drought index. It is an assessment, not a legal declaration: a category on the map is not a statement that any authority has declared a drought or imposed a restriction.
Rights
- Commercial reuse
- Yes
- Redistribution
- Yes
- Derivative use
- Yes
- Attribution required
- No
- Restrictions
- Applies to material authored by US federal agencies. Third-party material carried within a federal product may be separately protected.
- Terms last checked
- 23 August 2026
Access and coverage
- Publisher
- National Drought Mitigation Center, United States Department of Agriculture and NOAA
- Geographic coverage
- United States, by state and for the contiguous states as a whole
- Temporal coverage
- 2000 onwards
- Update frequency
- weekly
- Formats
- json, api
- Bulk download
- Available
- Registration required
- No
- Cost to Hydrionis
- Free
- Domains
- drought
What Hydrionis holds from this publisher
The publisher’s own coverage is above. This is what Hydrionis has actually taken from it, at the subjects it measures — gauges, boreholes, reservoirs or places.
What is measured
- Abnormally dry or worse, share of area · %
- Exceptional drought or worse, share of area · %
- Extreme drought or worse, share of area · %
- Moderate drought or worse, share of area · %
- Severe drought or worse, share of area · %
How current it is
- Current
- Read from US Drought Monitor 2 days ago, and the newest weekly value covers 2026-08 — as current as this source gets.
Hydrionis products built from it
Where this publisher’s data reaches a reader. Each has its own page, with its licence and how to cite it.