National Drought Mitigation Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Organization

National Drought Mitigation Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Dataset

U.S. Drought Monitor

Geography

Nation, states, the District of Columbia, and Idaho counties

Time coverage

2000-2026

Update frequency

Weekly

Published

October 6, 2026

Original file

https://usdmdataservices.unl.edu/api/StateStatistics/GetDroughtSeverityStatisticsByAreaPercent

Methodology

https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/About/AbouttheData/DSCI.aspx

License

Public domain. U.S. federal government work, produced by the National Drought Mitigation Center with USDA and NOAA.

Our copy

U.S. Drought Monitor

Caveats

• The D0-D4 area-percent figures are cumulative: the D2 figure is the share of area in D2 or worse (D2, D3 or D4), not D2 alone, as the U.S. Drought Monitor's own data service documents. The 'None' figure is the remaining share in no drought class at all; None plus D0 always sums to 100 percent.
• The Drought Severity and Coverage Index (DSCI) is the publisher's own single-number rollup, documented as the sum of the D0-D4 cumulative percentages for a week; it ranges from 0 (no abnormal dryness anywhere) to 500 (the entire area in D4, Exceptional Drought). Understand Idaho requests it directly from the publisher's service rather than computing it.
• The area-percent figures are pulled for Idaho only. The Drought Severity and Coverage Index is pulled for the nation, every state, the District of Columbia, and every Idaho county; it is not pulled for counties outside Idaho.
• The map date is the Tuesday each week's conditions are assessed as of; the map itself is released the following Thursday. Weeks are not revised after release.
• The national Drought Severity and Coverage Index figure is the publisher's own 'Total' row (all 50 states), not its separate row for the 48 contiguous states.