A new study finds that citizen-science reporting of local conditions across a wet-to-dry scale reflects meteorological conditions. The data provide on-the-ground details that can be incorporated into existing drought monitoring processes.

Climate change shifts the baseline for what should be considered “normal” hydrological conditions, which shifts the definition of drought. Thirty years usually provide adequate data for climatology, but shorter periods using more recent data may work better for rapidly changing areas such as the Southwest.

What’s behind the recent droughts in Hawaii? A new study using NOAA’s primary weather-prediction model shows what can—and cannot—be inferred from available data. Not every event has an apparent and simple “first cause.”

Blue-carbon ecosystems have a small global footprint, but they can bury many times more carbon per acre than even a tropical rainforest.

A new study finds that drought onset over summer 2020 to spring 2021 was caused by four consecutive seasons of below-normal precipitation. The driest summer on record occurred in 2020, starting the drought.