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Impacts and Perspectives on the 2023 Southern U.S. Drought and Heat: November 8, 2023
Chicos mountains in Big Bend National Park, Texas.
Event Date
November 8, 2023

Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas faced Exceptional Drought (D4) conditions for the past year. These have resulted in low river flows through the lower Mississippi River, record-setting fire conditions in Louisiana, and additional hardships for agriculture in the region. Watch the recap to learn more about current and forecasted drought conditions in the region.

Cracked Mud Flats on a Hot Summer Day, Eugene, Oregon, USA
Summer 2023 in Review: A Look Back at Drought Across the U.S. in 10 Maps
Published on

When winter began, drought and dryness covered almost all of the Great Plains and West, and the snowfall in winter 2020-2021 didn’t do much to help conditions in the Western U.S. Explore drought conditions across the U.S. this winter in a series of 8 maps.

Gridded Climate Datasets: Applied Climate Information System (ACIS) NRCC Interpolated (Grid 1)

ACIS NRCC Interpolated (Grid 1) is a gridded dataset that includes area averages of daily maximum, minimum, and average temperatures and daily precipitation amounts for the contiguous United States from January 1, 1950 to the present.

Data Coverage
Contiguous U.S.
Period of Record
1950 – Present
File Format
text (ascii)
geotiff
Data Type
Land-based Station
2023 Western Drought Webinar: May 9, 2023
Images of drought across the western United States.
Event Date
May 9, 2023

NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), in partnership with NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) and National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center, hosted the 2023 Western Drought Webinar on May 9 to provide the latest information on current drought conditions and outlooks. Speakers from the U.S.

NASA Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) - IMERG

NASA GPM-IMERG: The Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) algorithm combines information from the GPM satellite constellation to estimate precipitation over the majority of the Earth's surface.  

Data Coverage
Global
Period of Record
2000 - Present
File Format
geotiff
netcdf-4
Data Type
Land-based Station
Satellite

U.S. Gridded Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) from nClimGrid-Monthly - Cloned

The US Gridded Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) is derived from the nClimGrid-Monthly dataset and includes timescales of 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 12, 24, 36, 48, 60 and 72 months.

Data Coverage
United States
Period of Record
1895–Present (Base Period 1895–2014)
File Format
netcdf-4
Data Type
Land-based Station

ECMWF Reanalysis v5 (ERA5)

ERA5 is the fifth generation ECMWF atmospheric reanalysis of the global climate covering the period from January 1940 to present. ERA5 is produced by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) at ECMWF.

Data Coverage
Global
Period of Record
1940 - Present
File Format
geotiff
netcdf-4
Data Type
Land-based Station
Model
2023 Western Drought Webinar
Event Date
May 9, 2023
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
MDT
Location
Virtual

NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), in partnership with NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) and National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center, is hosting the 2023 Western Drought Webinar on May 9 to provide the latest information on current drought conditions and outlooks. 

South Central U.S. Drought Update and Winter Outlook: November 14, 2022
The Rio Grande River in the southern U.S. Photo credit: designwithval, Shutterstock.
Event Date
November 14, 2022

From shipping to agriculture and fire, the current drought has caused major impacts across the South Central United States so far. The forecast of a third La Niña winter does not bode well for lingering drought across the southern U.S. 

Multi-Radar Multi-Sensor System (MRMS)

The Multi-Radar Multi-Sensor System combines data streams from multiple radars, satellites, surface observations, upper air observations, lightning reports, rain gauges, and numerical weather prediction models to produce a suite of decision-support products every two minutes.

Data Coverage
Puerto Rico
United States
USVI/USAPI
Data Type
Blended Products
Land-based Station
Model
Radar
Satellite
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