Current Impacts
To see or report current drought impacts, please visit the Drought Impacts Toolkit, where you can find impacts from media in the Drought Impact Reporter and from citizen scientists and other volunteer observers under Condition Monitoring Observations.
Historic Impacts
No two states have the same experience during a drought. Below are examples of some of the impacts experienced in Illinois in the past. The process for developing this example impact table is described in Noel, M., Bathke, D., Fuchs, B., Gutzmer, D., Haigh, T., Hayes, M., Poděbradská, M., Shield, C., Smith, K. and Svoboda, M., 2020. Linking drought impacts to drought severity at the state level. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 101(8), pp.E1312-E1321. doi: 10.1175/BAMS-D-19-0067.1. To view a more complete record, and to filter impacts by drought severity, sector and season, check out the interactive State Impacts Tool.
Category | Examples of historically observed impacts |
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D0 | Soil moisture declines; lawns turn brown |
D1 | Fireworks are banned |
Row crops and pasture show drought stress |
Trees show drought stress; wildlife eat more crops |
D2 | Farmers are stressed; agriculture industry is hurting |
Lawns go dormant; weeds grow faster |
Outdoor burn bans are implemented |
Power plant intake is compromised |
Row crop and vegetable conditions are poor; hay yield is low; corn is baled for feed |
Water levels in wells, ponds, rivers, and lakes are low; streamflow is below average; voluntary water conservation is requested |
D3 | Disease kills deer; fish are stressed |
Vegetation is stressed |
Well and reservoir levels are very low |
D4 | Feed prices are high; crop loss is widespread; livestock are culled |
Wildlife are severely stressed; fish kills occur in lakes and rivers |