New interactive maps on drought.gov can help users better prepare for heat and drought in their community, with data from NOAA’s National Weather Service. Drought.gov now displays customizable maps showing National Weather Service heat advisories, warnings, and watches, as well as 3–7 and 8–14 day heat hazard outlooks. These maps can be overlaid with the U.S. Drought Monitor to monitor areas where extreme heat may worsen existing drought conditions. 

Flash droughts—the rapid onset or intensification of drought—can have widespread impacts on communities, ecosystems, and the economy. However, they also have unique challenges for monitoring and prediction. NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) Climate Prediction Center (CPC) created the the Rapid Onset Drought (ROD) hazard outlook to better predict areas at risk for flash drought development. 

Ranchers face a persistent hurdle to making proactive management decisions due to a lack of timely and accurate drought-related information. The Hawai'i Rangeland Information Portal (H-RIP) was developed to help ranchers fill critical information needs. 

Created through a partnership between researchers at the Desert Research Institute, the University of California Merced, Google, NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), and other federal partners, Climate Engine allows users to create maps and time series plots for visualizing complex climate data. Now, the team is launching a new publicly accessible platform designed to produce easy to understand,  detailed reports for every Bureau of Land Management state office, district office, field office, and grazing allotment in the contiguous United States.