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 Oregon 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 |
|---|
| D0 | Ski season is impacted |
| D1 | Some fields are left fallow |
| Water levels begin to decline; recreation and other uses impacted |
| D2 | Fire risk increases |
| Marshes are drying up, little water is available for waterfowl and wildlife; bears are moving into urban areas |
| Pastures are brown; hay yields are down and prices are up; producers are selling cattle |
| River flows are low and tributaries are running dry; conservation efforts begin in irrigation districts |
| D3 | Low oxygen and high river water temperatures are affecting fish |
| Planting is delayed |
| Pumping well water increases; wells are going dry; homeowners are trucking in potable water |
| Reservoirs and lakes are very low compared to normal; irrigation water is scarce |
| Waterfowl disease outbreaks increase |
| Wldfire activity is high |