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Media Kit | U.S. Drought Monitor











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U.S. Drought Monitor






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About the USDM

The U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) is a map released every Thursday that shows the severity and location of drought conditions across the U.S. and its territories in the Caribbean and the Pacific. The map uses six classifications.

Category	None	D0	D1	D2	D3	D4
Description	Normal or wet conditions	Abnormally Dry	Moderate Drought	Severe Drought	Extreme Drought	Exceptional Drought

The U.S. Drought Monitor is jointly produced by the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the United States Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The NDMC hosts the USDM website and provides the map, data and statistics to the public in English and Spanish.

A related product, the North American Drought Monitor is released monthly in collaboration with partners in Mexico and Canada to show drought conditions across the continent.



Fast Facts

The U.S. Drought Monitor is made with more than precipitation data.

When you think about drought, you probably think about water, or the lack of it. Precipitation plays a major role in the creation of the drought monitor, but the map’s author considers numerous indicators, including drought impacts and local insight from over 450 expert observers around the country. Authors use several dozen indicators to assess drought, including precipitation, streamflow, reservoir levels, temperature and evaporative demand, soil moisture and vegetation health. Because the drought monitor depicts both short and long-term drought conditions, the authors must look at data for multiple timeframes. The final map produced each week represents a summary of the story being told by all the pieces of data. To help tell that story, authors don’t just look at data - they converse over the course of the map-making week with experts located across the country and draw information about drought impacts from media reports and private citizens.

A real person, using real data, makes the USDM.

Each week’s map analyzes new data for the weekly update. The map authors are climatologists or meteorologists from the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (the academic partner and web host of the USDM), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The author’s job is to do something that a computer can’t. When the data is pointing in different directions, they make sense out of it.

The USDM is a current snapshot, not a forecast.

The USDM is a “snapshot” of current drought conditions. Each map is an update of the one before. The map comes out on Thursday, and shows what happened up through Tuesday morning. Precipitation that falls on Wednesday won’t change the next day’s map, but it might change the next week’s map. This gives the author at least two days to look at all the data and make a final map.

Drought declarations may or may not be based on the USDM.

Many agencies and organizations look at the USDM, but drought declarations only come from federal, state and local agencies. Some of them look at the USDM to declare drought, but some look at other indicators as well. USDA uses the USDM to determine a producer’s eligibility for certain drought assistance programs, like the Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFP) and Emergency Haying or Grazing on CRP acres and to “fast-track” Secretarial drought disaster designations.

The public can be part of the drought-monitoring process.

The USDM triggers federal disaster relief for agricultural producers. Sometimes farmers and ranchers call, email or better yet use the online reporting system to say drought in their area is worse than what the latest map shows. When the author gets a report like that, they work with the local experts to look closely at all available data for that area, to see whether measurements such as rain and temperature agree with what farmers and ranchers are saying. This is the process that authors follow whether they get one report or one hundred reports. Reports from more places during drought may help state officials and others know where to look for impacts.



Learn more about the process of developing the USDM and the science behind it on the What is the USDM? and Drought Classification pages of this website. Access more information about the NDMC, the USDM and related tools in our database of factsheets.

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Key Features of the USDM Site



Maps

Access current and historic USDM maps at different spatial scales. You can also overlay the map with other information, see how conditions have changed, download animated GIFs and export customized visuals. Raw GIS data is available to build your own map.



Graphs and Statistics

Use graphs, time series and data tables to neatly convey information about drought coverage and severity, going back to the start of the USDM in 2000. Statistics are available for the extent of drought, and population affected, in each USDM category.



Drought Indicators and Outlooks

Explore the datasets for current climate conditions and inputs that are used by the USDM authors to create the map each week. You can also examine the suite of forecasts and drought outlooks developed by NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.



Summaries

Consult the weekly USDM summary to get more context and detail for each week’s maps. The summary provides an overview of conditions broken down by region, recent weather highlights and a snapshot of the upcoming forecast.



Drought Impacts

Check out the Drought Impacts Toolkit to track news stories, tweets and citizen science observations of drought’s effects on people, agriculture and the environment. You can also view historic impacts by state, sector or drought severity.



Educational Materials

Visit the About section of our website to learn more and access in-depth tutorials on how to use the USDM.





Website Statistics

When people want to find out about drought, they turn to the USDM. In 2022, the website received 13.9 million page views and hosted 3.6 million users.



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Social Media

The USDM is released on Thursdays at 8:30 AM ET. Throughout the day, and the week following, the NDMC and our partners spread the word on social media, sharing maps, highlights and related products. Follow these accounts to join the conversation.



National Drought Mitigation Center

Twitter: @DroughtCenter

Facebook: facebook.com/DroughtCenter

Instagram: @TheDroughtCenter

Mastodon: @droughtcenter@mastodon.world



National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Twitter: @NOAA

Facebook: facebook.com/NOAA

Instagram: @noaa



U.S. Department of Agriculture

Twitter: @USDA

Facebook: facebook.com/USDA

Instagram: @usdagov







Share Information

The USDM website makes it easy to share information about drought conditions that your audience cares about.

Use #drought to join a larger conversation that includes climatologists, agricultural producers, researchers and many more.



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Inquiries

For more information or to get in touch, visit the Contact Us page of this website.

Authorship of the USDM each week rotates among individuals affiliated with the NDMC, USDA and NOAA. For questions about this week’s map, please contact the specific author.


United States & Puerto Rico

David Simeral
Desert Research Institute
david.simeral@dri.edu
(775) 674-7132


Pacific Islands & Virgin Islands

Brad Rippey
U.S. Department of Agriculture
brad.rippey@usda.gov
(202) 720-2397



For general questions about the Drought Monitor, drought impacts or the USDM website, please contact:

DroughtMonitor@unl.edu

U.S. Drought Monitor
National Drought Mitigation Center
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
P.O. Box 830988
Lincoln, NE 68583-0988
402-472-6707
402-472-2946










The U.S. Drought Monitor is produced through a partnership between the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the United States Department of Agriculture, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.









Contact Us

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National Drought Mitigation Center
University of Nebraska-Lincoln

3310 Holdrege Street
P.O. Box 830988
Lincoln, NE 68583–0988

DroughtMonitor@unl.edu

(402) 472–6707

(402) 472–2946






©2026 - National Drought Mitigation CenterMastodon





National Drought Mitigation Center







The National Drought Mitigation Center’s mission is to reduce the effects of drought on people, the environment and the economy by researching the science of drought monitoring and the practice of drought planning. We collaborate with and learn from decision-makers at all levels – individual ranchers, communities, regions, watersheds, tribes, states, countries – across the US and around the world. We organize and present workshops, writeshops and other capacity-building activities, in close cooperation with local partners.
Go to the NDMC










United States Department of Agriculture







The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) provides leadership on food, agriculture, natural resources, rural development, nutrition, and related issues based on public policy, the best available science, and effective management.
Go to the USDA










U.S. Department of Commerce







The Department of Commerce’s mission is to create the conditions for economic growth and opportunity for all communities. Through its 13 bureaus, the Department works to drive U.S. economic competitiveness, strengthen domestic industry, and spur the growth of quality jobs in all communities across the country.
Go to the U.S. Department of Commerce










National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration







NOAA is an agency that enriches life through science. Our reach goes from the surface of the sun to the depths of the ocean floor as we work to keep the public informed of the changing environment around them.
Go to NOAA










National Aeronautics and Space Administration







The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is America’s civil space program and the global leader in space exploration. The agency has a diverse workforce of just under 18,000 civil servants, and works with many more U.S. contractors, academia, and international and commercial partners to explore, discover, and expand knowledge for the benefit of humanity. With an annual budget of $23.2 billion in Fiscal Year 2021, which is less than 0.5% of the overall U.S. federal budget, NASA supports more than 312,000 jobs across the United States, generating more than $64.3 billion in total economic output (Fiscal Year 2019).
Go to NASA







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