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Drought Outlook: About The Data
Drought Outlooks:
- The Monthly and Seasonal Drought Outlook products are updated every month, the seasonal is released on the third Thursday of each month and the monthly is released on the final day of the month.
These products are produced by forecasters at the United States Department of Agriculture and the Climate Prediction Center.
- The drought outlooks depict large-scale trends based on subjectively derived probabilities guided by short and long-range statistical and dynamical forecasts.
- Use caution for applications that can be affected by short lived events. "Ongoing" drought areas are based on the U.S. Drought Monitor areas (intensities of D1 to D4).
Reservoir Data and Statistics:
Snow Water Equivalent Data:
Agriculture Layers:
- The agriculture layers are using The ESRI Living Atlas of the World layers from ESRI ArcGIS Online. In turn, these layers are acquired from the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.
- These layers using the 2017 Census of Agriculture data. Every 5 years, the USDA takes a census of all agricultural products in the United States. For more updated data, you can access the USDA Survey of Agriculture conducted every year.
- The agriculture layers use the total number of acres harvested in a county to build out the dot density maps. These layers show important regions of crop production but are not designed for showing total acres harvested as each dot represents different values for each crop and level of detail.
Population Statistics:
Temperature and Precipitation Forecast Outlooks:
- The temperate and precipitation forecast outlooks found on the Interactive Drought Outlook Tools page are produced by forecasters at the Climate Prediction Center.
- The 6 to 10 Day and 8 to 14 Day forecasts are produced daily. Monday through Friday by a CPC forecaster, Saturday and Sunday are developed with an automated blend of models and quality controled by a CPC forecaster.
- The monthly and seasonal forecasts are released on the third thursday of each month from a CPC forecaster. On the final day of the month, the forthcoming month's forecast is updated and released.
Climatology Data:
Flash Drought Forecast Tool:
- The Flash Drought Forecast Tool found on the Interactive Drought Outlook Tools page is an experimental tool from the Climate Prediction Center produced for analyzing the potential for flash drought in the United States.
- If the Flash Drought Tool is not available on the Web Experience please visit the Climate Prediction Center's Web Page, here, for more information.
Energy Impacts:
- The energy impacts data is from the Energy Information Administration, depicts all operable electric generating plants by energy source in the U.S. and was downloaded from ESRI Living Atlas of the World. For more information please visit the layer page on the Living Atlas website.