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When winter began, drought and dryness covered almost all of the Great Plains and West, and the snowfall in winter 2020-2021 didn’t do much to help conditions in the Western U.S. Explore drought conditions across the U.S. this winter in a series of 8 maps.

To better understand the negative impacts of drought on respiratory mortality, a new NIDIS-funded study, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, examined the effects of monthly drought exposure on respiratory-related deaths in different U.S. NOAA climate regions from 2000–2018. 

The American Meteorological Society is hosting its 104th annual meeting on January 28–February 1, 2024, in Baltimore, Maryland. This year, the meeting will focus on the theme, "Living in a Changing Environment.” The National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) and its partners are excited to co-chair several sessions related to drought analysis and prediction, flash drought, and tools and products for real-time climate monitoring.

Through the Summer 2023 NASA DEVELOP team, early-career scientists will measure and evaluate trends in air quality during drought evolution in the Pacific Northwest.

In a new NIDIS-funded study in Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, an international group of researchers created a climate-driven model of summer burned area evolution in California and combined it with natural and historical climate simulations to assess the importance of human-caused climate change on increased burned areas.

Drought is one of the costliest and deadliest climate-related disasters in the United States, necessitating public health engagement at a national level. Although drought is not typically thought of as a health hazard, the pathways to human health outcomes are prevalent and numerous. To better understand these pathways and the actions that could be taken to reduce health impacts associated with drought, NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) has supported the first comprehensive assessment of drought and health.

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) Bison Range just gained a brand new mesonet station to record and deliver hydrological and meteorological data. The station went live on May 4, 2023 with a goal to improve the monitoring of weather, soil, and snowpack across the Flathead Reservation, as well as contributing to the larger Montana Mesonet network. 

The Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences recently awarded bronze medals for superior performance to eight team members from NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS). These medals reaffirm the successful launch of the redesigned Drought.gov website as "a cutting-edge implementation of the NIDIS public law, built on interagency and Department of Commerce partnerships." 

A new computer modeling technique developed by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) offers the potential to generate months-ahead summertime drought forecasts across the Western United States with the capability of differentiating between dry conditions at locations just a couple of miles apart.

NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) is pleased to announce the launch of new and improved state pages on the U.S. Drought Portal.The expanded Drought.gov state pages—which NIDIS developed in collaboration with NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information—provide a one-stop shop for state drought information, including interactive and easily shareable maps, statistics, and resources.