| Report Area | Percentage of Weeks in D0 (Abnormally Dry) | Percentage of Weeks in D1 (Moderate Drought) | Percentage of Weeks in D2 (Severe Drought) | Percentage of Weeks in D3 (Extreme Drought) | Percentage of Weeks in D4 (Exceptional Drought) | Percentage of Weeks in Drought (Any) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Franklin County, PA | 9.53% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 9.53% |
| Pennsylvania | 13.5% | 2.24% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 15.74% |
| United States | 16.96% | 12.59% | 8.84% | 4.92% | 2.54% | 45.85% |
Percentage of Weeks in Drought, 1st Quarter 2015
| Report Area | Percentage of Weeks in D0 (Abnormally Dry) | Percentage of Weeks in D1 (Moderate Drought) | Percentage of Weeks in D2 (Severe Drought) | Percentage of Weeks in D3 (Extreme Drought) | Percentage of Weeks in D4 (Exceptional Drought) | Percentage of Weeks in Drought (Any) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Franklin County, PA | 17.98% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 17.98% |
| Pennsylvania | 20.62% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 20.62% |
| United States | 13.03% | 7.1% | 2.47% | 5.69% | 7.42% | 35.72% |
Climate & Health - Drought Severity
Data Background
The U.S. Drought Monitor, established in 1999, is a weekly map of drought conditions that is produced jointly by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The U.S. Drought Monitor website is hosted and maintained by the NDMC. The map is based on measurements of climatic, hydrologic and soil conditions as well as reported impacts and observations from more than 350 contributors around the country. The U.S. Drought Monitor, a composite index that includes many indicators, is the drought map that policymakers and media use in discussions of drought and in allocating drought relief. For more about this source, please visit the United States Drought Monitor web page.
Methodology
This indicator reports the percentage of weeks in drought, by drought severity level. Data is based on analysis of weekly Drought Monitor shapefiles for 2012, 2013, and 2014. This weekly analysis reports the area of the United States experiencing drought, by drought severity level (D0 - Abnormally Dry through D4 - Exceptional Drought).
156 weeks of data presented in this format were analyzed by CARES to generate the 3-year average drought statistics shown here. Analysis involved intersecting census block group centroids with each of the weekly US Drought Monitor shapefiles. Resulting figures show the percentage of weeks that the report areas experience drought. Report area figures are population-weighted based on the following formula:
Where Dx is the drought severity level and P is the population of each census block group
Courtesy: Community Commons, <www.communitycommons.org>, November 2017