Severe Drought in the United States

A short deck, rendered to both revealjs and PowerPoint

Thomas Reinke

2026-08-10

The data

The U.S. Drought Monitor dataset:

  • 325,728 rows: state, week, and severity level
  • 1044 weeks, July 2001 to July 2021
  • 52 states and territories
  • Severity D0 (dry) to D4 (exceptional drought)

Source: TidyTuesday, week of 2021-07-20.

National time series

Peak drought week

  • Week of August 7, 2012
  • 38.5% of national land area in D2 to D4 drought
  • Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska reached peak levels

Peak drought map

Select Play to animate by quarter. Hover states for values.

Top affected states

Search or sort states across the dataset.