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Dry Times—formerly a bi-annual printed newsletter—has been converted into a more streamlined, email-based newsletter in an effort to establish and maintain regular and consistent communication with its partners and stakeholders in the regional Drought Early Warning Information Systems and around the country. 

The Physical Sciences Division of the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, in partnership with NIDIS, is conducting a year-long study examining the 2017 Northern Plains Drought. The study is examining the causes, evolution, and predictability of last year’s drought across much of Montana and the Dakotas, evaluating the historical behavior of droughts over this region, and determining what role, if any, climate change may have played.

Recently, the CDC National Center for Environmental Health released a guide called Preparing for the Health Effects of Drought: A Resource Guide for Public Health Professionals. This new guide contains five modules, providing best practices on conducting vulnerability assessments, collaboration among stakeholders, communicating drought preparedness and response strategies, and where to find (and how to use) data on drought. 

Now is a good time to revisit a Story Map developed by NIDIS and NOAA Climate Office’s Modeling, Analysis, Predictions and Projections program. This story map is an interactive presentation that analyzes and explains the 2010–2015 Texas drought, taking users through a visual history of the drought using images and graphs to provide an interactive and engaging experience. 

A new report published by the Carolinas Integrated Sciences & Assessments, a NOAA RISA team, summarizes the evaluation results and recommendations for the future of the CoCoRaHS Citizen Science Condition Monitoring project.

In an effort to better understand temperature and its relationship with drought, NOAA’s Modeling, Analysis, Predictions, and Projections Program Drought Task Force set out to research how temperature factors into the development of drought. This research was just completed and published last week, available on the MAPP website: Temperature and Drought: A science assessment by a subgroup of the Drought Task Force.

NIDIS and NOAA’s Modeling, Analysis, Predictions and Projections program have just launched an interactive presentation that analyzes and explains the historic drought that impacted California from 2011 to 2017. This presentation, called a “Story Map,” takes users through a visual history of the drought, using images and graphs to provide an interactive and engaging experience.

In response to the need for snow drought resources, the NIDIS Drought Early Warning System (DEWS) coordinators for California-Nevada, the Pacific Northwest, and Intermountain West teamed up with the Climatologist from the Desert Research Institute and the Western Regional Climate Center to launch a new snow drought page on drought.gov that features information, resources, and tools for snow drought.

Last week NIDIS was represented coast-to-coast in a series of conferences, symposiums, and stakeholder meetings focused on drought, precipitation, and water. NIDIS staff members were in California, Washington, Oregon, Nebraska, Indiana, Washington, D.C., and Alabama presenting news and updates about NIDIS and drought early warning to a range of stakeholders, including experts in water, resource managers, and the agriculture industry.

The Office of Weather and Air Quality within NOAA Oceanic & Atmospheric Research has announced a funding opportunity for projects that aim to expand and improve the use of snowpack (snow water equivalent) and soil moisture remote sensing data.