According to the July 16, 2024 U.S. Drought Monitor, moderate to exceptional drought covers 17.4% of the United States including Puerto Rico, an increase from last week’s 16.4%. The worst drought categories (extreme to exceptional drought) increased from 0.9% last week to 1.3%.
The upper-level circulation pattern over the contiguous U.S. (CONUS) during this U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) week (July 10–16) was a continuation of the pattern that dominated last week.
Ridges of high pressure were anchored over the East Coast and over the West, with a trough of low pressure inhabiting the Plains to the Mississippi River Valley. The trough guided the remnants of Hurricane Beryl across the Mid-Mississippi Valley to the Great Lakes, where it dropped above-normal precipitation over the region. Beryl’s remnants then moved over southeast Canada, giving adjacent parts of the Northeast a wetter-than-normal week. In the meantime, a coastal low-pressure system developed along the Mid-Atlantic, giving that part of the East Coast above-normal rainfall. Other areas that were wetter than normal included Deep-South Texas and a few isolated spots in the West to the northern Plains. A cold front early in the week moved across the Southeast, and a few weak fronts brushed northern-tier states. But the main drivers of the weather this week were the high-pressure ridges. These kept most areas of the CONUS dry and warmer than normal.
The warmest temperature anomalies were across the West and in the Northeast. The week averaged near to cooler than normal from the southern Plains to the Ohio Valley due to the clouds and rain that were associated with Beryl. An upper-level trough brought cooler- and wetter-than-normal weather to Alaska. It was another drier-than-normal week for Hawaii, while Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands had a mixed precipitation anomaly pattern.
Drought or abnormal dryness contracted where heavier rain fell across parts of the Midwest and the Mid-Atlantic coast, as well as part of Alaska. But the continued dryness and heat expanded or intensified drought or abnormal dryness across much of the West and Deep South to the central Appalachians, as well as parts of the Plains and Hawaii.
Nationally, expansion was more than contraction, so the nationwide moderate to exceptional drought area percentage increased this week. Abnormal dryness and drought are currently affecting over 135 million people across the United States including Puerto Rico—about 43.5% of the population.
The full U.S. Drought Monitor weekly update is available from Drought.gov.
In addition to Drought.gov, you can find further information on the current drought on this week’s Drought Monitor update at the National Drought Mitigation Center.
The most recent U.S. Drought Outlook is available from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s World Agriculture Outlook Board also provides information about the drought’s influence on crops and livestock.
For additional drought information, follow #DroughtMonitor on Facebook and X.
