Latest News About Drought Monitor

Updated 2026-05-28 16:04

Here’s a quick update on the latest U.S. Drought Monitor news and how to read the current map.

Core answer

The U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) is issued weekly on Thursdays and reflects drought conditions across the United States using five categories: D0 (Abnormally Dry) through D4 (Exceptional). Recent coverage emphasizes localized drought depiction and the integration of new tools to show how conditions affect specific areas.[2][4]
Recent enhancements to the USDM include more detailed local context for how drought affects individual locations, with accompanying statistics and time-series graphics to help readers interpret trends at a finer scale. These updates were highlighted as improving local usability for communities and decision-makers.[1]
The National Weather Service notes that the USDM is a collaborative product produced with NOAA and USDA involvement, and the weekly map is published each Thursday at 8:30 AM Eastern Time. This aligns with the standard update cadence you can rely on for planning and response.[3]

What to look for in the current map

Color-coded drought intensity by region: D0 through D4 indicate increasing severity, with D0 signaling dryness that could lead to drought, and D4 indicating exceptional drought conditions.[2]
Abnormal dryness (D0) to regional drought indicators, helping distinguish areas on the path toward drought from those already experiencing significant impacts.[2]
Corresponding narrative summary and statistics on the USDM site, which often include time-series views and guidance for agriculture and water managers.[5][2]

Where to find the latest information

U.S. Drought Monitor home and current map: droughtmonitor.unl.edu (Current Map).[4][6]
Summary and weekly update details (including methodology and regional notes): droughtmonitor.unl.edu/summary.aspx.[5]
NASA/NOAA/USDA collaboration context for the USDM and its role in agricultural and disaster planning.[2]

If you’d like, I can fetch the latest weekly map and pull out the key changes for your area in Los Angeles, CA, and summarize potential impacts for water resources and agriculture. I can also generate a simple chart showing the trend of drought categories over the past few weeks for your region. Would you like me to proceed with that?[6][4]

Sources

Drought Information - National Weather Service

Drought, Eastern North Carolina

www.weather.gov

Drought Monitoring - National Weather Service

The National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office in Wilmington, NC provides official weather forecasts, warnings, observations, past weather, and general weather information for Southeast North Carolina and Northeast South Carolina.

www.weather.gov

News

These new enhancements to the U.S. Drought Monitor are supported by the Drought Risk Management Research Center, a partnership between the drought center and the National Integrated Drought Information System. The new products enable 121 WFOs and 12 RFCs covered by the U.S. Drought Monitor to show people exactly how drought affects their area. Accompanying statistics and time series graphs, available for some time now, help round out the picture. … The National Drought Mitigation Center at the...

drought.unl.edu

U.S. Drought Monitor - USDA Climate Hubs

The U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) is a map released every Thursday, showing parts of the U.S. that are in drought. The map uses five classifications: abnormally dry (D0), showing areas that may be going into or are coming out of drought, and four levels of drought: moderate (D1), severe (D2), extreme (D3) and exceptional (D4). It is produced jointly by the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),...