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When drought intensifies, decisions cannot wait. Yet the information guiding those decisions is often scattered across multiple websites, difficult to compare, and challenging to translate into action. To help close that gap, the Montana Climate Office has launched the Drought Data Dashboard (D3, pronounced “D three”), a free, open-source web platform that delivers daily drought information across the contiguous United States.

Soil moisture and snowpack data serve as a tool to support critical decisions: farmers rely on it to decide when to plant crops; forecasters and communities use it for flood warnings; and federal scientists use it to monitor and identify drought. A recent NIDIS-funded study within the UMRB project found strong interest in using soil moisture and snowpack data across sectors and opportunities to further expand and maximize such use by refining communications and providing data in more accessible formats.

A new interactive web-based tool, TroutCast, launched on June 1, 2026 to help forecast drought impacts on trout populations and support fisheries and water management across Montana’s renowned blue-ribbon rivers.

From the unpredictability of flash droughts to dry conditions that threatened water supplies in major cities last year, the Mid-Atlantic faces complex challenges. To confront these growing risks, more than 50 federal, state, academic, and regional stakeholders convened to begin shaping the Mid-Atlantic Drought Early Warning System (DEWS).

Led by NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), the Upper Missouri River Basin (UMRB) Data Value Study is a collaboration across the federal government, with Tribal Nations, states, and academic institutions. The UMRB Data Value Study advances understanding of soil moisture and plains snowpack to improve the Nation’s ability to predict and provide warning of flood and drought. 

A new study in Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies, funded in part by NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), evaluated whether the Evaporative Stress Index (ESI) can help identify these rapid changes. Researchers found ESI shows its strongest alignment with soil moisture in the fall and can provide an early signal of developing flash drought conditions in the Southeast. Changes in ESI often emerge alongside rapid soil moisture declines, offering a useful, persistent early warning of drought when used alongside other indicators.

In 2026, NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), established by Public Law (P.L. 109-430), marks a major milestone: 20 years of advancing drought early warning and enhancing long-term drought resilience across the United States. 

There is a growing possibility that an El Niño will be among the strongest influences on weather patterns across the U.S. later this year. What will this mean for drought in the Southern Plains?

The Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) has traditionally been NOAA's official measure, or index, to track the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate pattern. In February, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center adopted the Relative Oceanic Niño Index (RONI) to better designate past events and predict future phases of ENSO. RONI accounts for the long-term ocean temperature trends in a way that the traditional ONI does not, thus providing a better representation of the seasonal climate variability. 

NIDIS-supported researchers from the Pacific Drought Knowledge Exchange developed an improved Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), which captures how observed rainfall deviates from the climatological average over a given time period. This product uses high-resolution (250 meter) rainfall maps to produce the gridded SPI product in near-real-time on the Hawai'i Climate Data Portal.