Feature layers showing areas of drought as reported by the Canadian Drought Monitor and the United States Drought Monitor. Polygons show drought intensity and points show drought impact.  

 

Fields included:

 

Drought Intensity Code (polygons):

• 0 = Abnormally Dry (represents a drought event that occurs once every three to five years)

• 1 = Moderate Drought (five to 10 year event)

• 2 = Severe Drought (10 to 20 year event)

• 3 = Extreme Drought (20 to 50 year event)

• 4 = Exceptional Drought (50+ year event)

• 5 = Drought not analyzed

Impact Code (points):

 

• S = short-term (typically less than six months e.g. agriculture, grasslands)

• L = long-term (typically more than six months e.g. hydrology, ecology)

• SL = a combination of both short-term and long-term impacts.

 

Observation Date: The calendar date which the mapped drought conditions are valid for.  This is also the cut-off date for inclusion of data used to complete the drought assessment.  The observation date is different than the map release date.

Data Source: This feature layer contains data from two main sources:

 

• Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada:

 

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) oversees the Canadian Drought Monitor.  The Canadian Drought Monitor is produced by AAFC's National Agroclimate Information Service (NAIS) of the Agro-Climate, Geomatics and Earth Observations (ACGEO) Division of the Science and Technology Branch. 

The Canadian Drought Monitor is a composite product developed from a wide assortment of information. Drought prone regions are analyzed based on precipitation, temperature, drought model index maps, and other climate data and are interpreted by federal, provincial and academic scientists. Once a consensus is reached, a monthly map showing drought designations for Canada is digitized. The Canadian Drought Monitor team also provides input into the larger North American Drought Monitor (NA-DM).

NAIS updates the Canadian Drought Monitor dataset on a monthly basis, usually released by the 10th of every month to correspond to the end of the previous month. AAFC publishes monthly map products on the Canadian Drought Monitor website.

Data are subject to the Government of Canada Open Data Licence Agreement: http://open.canada.ca/en/open-government-licence-canada. 

 

• United States Drought Monitor:

 

The United States (U.S.) Drought Monitor is jointly produced by the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), the United States Department of Agriculture, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Map is courtesy of NDMC-UNL.

The U.S. Drought Monitor is a composite index that uses five key indicators and numerous supplementary indicators which evaluate climatic, hydrologic and soil conditions across the United States every week. Drought impacts and local reports from a wide network of expert observers across the US are also included in the assessment. Eleven climatologists from the organizations mentioned above rotate serving as lead author each week. The resulting map is a combination of the best available data, local observations and experts’ best judgment.

U.S. Drought Monitor maps are released Thursday mornings based on data and observations through the preceding Tuesday. A comprehensive suite of weekly map and data products are available on the United States Drought Monitor website (http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu).