WDrought in the United States is similar to that of other portions of the globe. Below normal precipitation leads to drought, which is caused by an above average persistence of high pressure over the drought area. Changes in the track of extratropical cyclones, which can occur during climate cycles such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, as well as the North Atlantic Oscillation, Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and Atlantic multidecadal oscillation, modulates which areas would be more prone to drought and when drought develops. Increased drought frequency is expected to be one of the effects of global warming. In dry areas, removing grass cover and going with a more natural vegetation for the area can reduce the impact of drought, since a significant amount of fresh water is used to keep lawns green. Droughts are periodic, alternating with floods over a series of years.
WThe 1950s Texas drought was a period between 1949 and 1957 in which the state received 30 to 50% less rain than normal, while temperatures rose above average. During this time, Texans experienced the second-, third-, and eighth-driest single years ever in the state – 1956, 1954, and 1951, respectively. The drought was described by a state water official as "the most costly and one of the most devastating droughts in 600 years."
WThe North American Drought of 1988 ranks among the worst episodes of drought in the United States. This multi-year drought began in most areas in 1988 and continued into 1989 and 1990. The drought caused $60 billion in damage. The drought occasioned some of the worst blowing-dust events since 1977 or the 1930s in many locations in the Midwestern United States, including a protracted dust storm, which closed schools in South Dakota in late February 1988. During the spring, several weather stations set records for the lowest monthly total precipitation and the longest interval between measurable precipitation, for example, 55 days in a row without precipitation in Milwaukee. During the summer, two record-setting heatwaves developed, similar to those of 1934 and 1936. The concurrent heat waves killed 4,800 to 17,000 people in the United States. During the summer of 1988, the drought led to many wildfires in forested western North America, including the Yellowstone fires of 1988.
WThe 2010–2013 Southern United States and Mexico drought was a severe to extreme drought that plagued the Southern United States, including parts of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Oklahoma; the Southwestern States, including Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona; as well as large parts of Mexico, in a three-year pattern from 2010 to 2013.
WThe 2011-2017 California drought was a persistent drought from the period of December 2011 to March 2017, and is one of the most intense droughts in California history, with the period of late 2011 through 2014 being the driest in California history. The drought killed 102 million trees from 2011 to 2016, with 62 million killed in 2016 alone. The cause of the drought is attributed to a ridge of high pressure in the Pacific Sea — the "Ridiculously Resilient Ridge" — which often barred powerful winter storms from reaching the state.
WThe 2012–13 North American drought, an expansion of the 2010–13 Southern United States drought, originated in the midst of a record-breaking heat wave. Low snowfall amounts in winter, coupled with the intense summer heat from La Niña, caused drought-like conditions to migrate northward from the southern United States, wreaking havoc on crops and water supply. The drought inflicted significant economic ramifications for the affected states. It exceeded, in many measures, the 1988–89 North American drought, the most recent comparable drought.
WThe 2015 Caribbean drought is an ongoing drought affecting the Caribbean islands, from Cuba to Trinidad and Tobago. The situation is further aggravated by the presence of an abnormal amount of dust and dry air over the southern Atlantic. Besides the especially hard hit U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, other Caribbean islands were affected by drought conditions to varying degrees. These include Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, St. Lucia, and Trinidad and Tobago. The drought region also extends to Guyana in the northeastern region of South America.
WThe 2016 New York Drought was by some measures the worst drought to affect Western New York and parts of the Finger Lakes Region and Southern Tier on record. By the middle of July, the percent of the state by area that was in a D-2 according to the United States Drought Monitor was 23.01%, the greatest amount since the weekly reports began in 2000. Nearly 90% of the state was classified as "Abnormally Dry" or "Moderate Drought". For reference, none of the state has ever been placed in D-4. Furthermore, The Buffalo News reported on July 22 that it had become the worst drought in the Buffalo area since their main weather station opened in 1943. There was a longer term dry period through the 1960s in New York with greater duration but less intensity.
WBlack Sunday refers to a particularly severe dust storm that occurred on April 14, 1935 as part of the Dust Bowl. It was one of the worst dust storms in American history and it caused immense economic and agricultural damage. It is estimated to have displaced 300 million tons of topsoil from the prairie area.
WThe Days of Prayer for Rain in the State of Texas was a designated period from Friday, April 22, 2011, to Sunday, April 24, 2011, during which Texas governor Rick Perry asked that Texans pray for "the healing of our land [Texas]" and for an end to the drought. The governor noted that in the past, Texans "have been strengthened, assured and lifted up through prayer", and that he thus believed prayer to be an appropriate measure to address the drought.
WThe Drought Information Act of 2013 is a bill that would authorize funding for the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) through 2018. The NIDIS is "charged with providing timely information to prevent drought and extreme weather damage."
WThroughout history, California has experienced many droughts, such as 1841, 1864, 1924, 1928–1935, 1947–1950, 1959–1960, 1976–1977, 1986–1992, 2006–2009, 2011–2019, and 2020. As the most populous state in the United States and a major agricultural producer, drought in California can have a severe economic as well as environmental impact. Drought may be due solely to, or found in combination with, weather conditions; economic or political actions; or population and farming.
WThe Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s; severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent the aeolian processes caused the phenomenon. The drought came in three waves, 1934, 1936, and 1939–1940, but some regions of the High Plains experienced drought conditions for as many as eight years.
WHigh Rock Lake is a reservoir located on the Yadkin River in central North Carolina in the counties of Davidson and Rowan. Built in 1926-27 by the Tallassee Power Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa), the lake is the northernmost of a series of four hydroelectric projects designed at the time to support the company’s Badin Works, a large aluminum smelting operation located 16 miles downstream in the community of Badin. After the permanent closing of the Badin Works in 2007, Alcoa continued to operate its Yadkin hydroelectric facilities until selling them to Cube Hydro Carolinas in 2016.
WThe National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) Act was signed into law in 2006. The Western Governors' Association described the need for NIDIS in a 2004 report, Creating a Drought Early Warning System for the 21st Century: The National Integrated Drought Information System. The NIDIS Act calls for an interagency, multi-partner approach to drought monitoring, forecasting, and early warning, led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
WThe National Integrated Drought Information System Reauthorization Act of 2013 is a bill that would reauthorize the National Integrated Drought Information System, a program that examines the impact of droughts and tries to respond to them on a federal level. The bill would extend the program until 2018.