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 experience the same set of impacts during a drought. We developed tables of impacts reported during past droughts in each state for each level of drought on the U.S. Drought Monitor. These state-specific possible impacts complement the general, national possible impacts column of the U.S. Drought Monitor Classification Scheme.
| Category | Historically observed impacts |
|---|
| D1 | Corn yield is low; soybean, cotton, hay and pastures are stressed |
| Wildlife eat crops |
| Fire danger increases; burn bans begin |
| Voluntary water restrictions are requested; river water levels are lower; streams are dry |
| D2 | Hay and pasture supply is low; cattle are weaned early; producers are feeding livestock supplemental hay and baling corn for feed |
| Fire frequency increases |
| Mandatory water restrictions are implemented; reservoir levels are low; water table is dropping |
| D3 | Cattle are sold; hay is extremely scarce |
| Lakes are nearly dry |
How well does this table characterize drought impacts in your state? Think an impact is missing? Please fill out this survey to help improve the table.