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 Utah 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 | Dryland crops are struggling |
Water for cattle is limited |
D1 | Feed for cattle is limited |
Soil moisture is low; winter wheat germination is poor |
Springs are drying |
D2 | Air quality is poor, dust is a problem |
Pasture and water is inadequate for cattle; ranching management practices change |
People pray for snow |
Streams and ponds are dry |
D3 | Fire danger increases; fire bans on public land are implemented |
Native vegetation is stressed |
Streamflow is low |
D4 | Fire restrictions increase |
Irrigation water allotments are cut |