Desert Research Institute

Since the start of the 21st century, California and Nevada have suffered extreme wildland fires and droughts that have caused devastating impacts to ecosystems and society. A common feature of these events has been very high evaporative demand—the “thirst” of the atmosphere—which has largely been driven by increased air temperatures caused by anthropogenic climate change. According to new

California and Nevada’s climate and weather patterns create fire-prone environments for many wildland–urban interface communities, highlighting the value in understanding the relationships between drought and wildfire. More specifically, information is needed on how drought indices are related to fire danger outputs that are commonly used in fire management. With NIDIS Coping with Drought

In an era of increasing wealth of earth observations, approaches for quickly accessing, analyzing and visualizing environmental data to better inform decision making at relevant scales is needed. Climate Engine enables users to utilize on-demand cloud computing and visualization to analyze and interact with climate and earth observations for decision support related to drought, water

Drought can have a significant impact on the management and operations of water utilities, from loss of water supply and poor source water quality to increased demand from customers and reduced revenues. Changing conditions in precipitation, snowpack, soil moisture, temperature, and evapotranspiration must be well monitored and better forecasted to provide water managers early warning of drought

The 2018-2019 water year is now underway, and with all eyes on the developing El Niño, there are many people wondering whether this winter will be any better than last year - particularly for snowpack in the West.  Last winter was marked by below-average precipitation and above-average temperatures through the first several months in many places across the country - with relief not

The Evaporative Demand Drought Index, also known as EDDI, is an experimental drought monitoring and early warning tool that looks for drought using atmospheric evaporative demand (also known as the “thirst of the atmosphere”). So far, EDDI maps and data have been made available for near-real-time and historical monitoring; now, with the help of the NOAA-National Centers for Environmental

Written in collaboration with the Western Regional Climate Center (WRCC) The physical relationship between drought and fire is complex, due to the many and varied first- and second-order effects at national, regional, and local scales. The timing, intensity, and frequency of drought events can have wildly divergent impacts on fuel flammability, fire behavior, and subsequently, wildland fire

Visit the new snow drought page The beginning of the 2017/2018 winter season brought little rain and snow, giving rise to concerns about snow drought across the Western United States. Snow drought is defined as a period of abnormally low snowpack for the time of year, reflecting either below-normal cold-season precipitation (dry snow drought) or a lack of snow accumulation, despite near-