Weekly Drought Webinar

The OSC produces drought monitoring information and reports, conducts research on the causes and impacts of drought in Texas, and provides information to the Texas Drought Preparedness Council and the U.S. Drought Monitor. We also host a weekly webinar on Mondays to collect information from various federal, state, and local agency representatives and private individuals in order to present a list of recommendations for the U. S. Drought Monitor to incorporate into the weekly drought depiction for Texas. The webinars are weekly, open to the puclic, and require no registration. Details can be found here.

Drought Preparedness Council Report

Find the Fall 2018 quarterly situation report (September, October, November) provided by the Drought Preparedness Council here.

Texas Drought Maps

The OSC producs weekly drought maps for use in the weekly drought webinar and for operational use. The portal to our drought maps and other high-resolution monitoring tools can be found here. In addition to our in-house generated maps, we use a variety of drought indicators to determine the impacts of drought across time scales, which can be found in the link in the sidebar. We also produce weekly summaries of drought-related impacts and changes in indices that are appended to the current monthly climate summary, and can be viewed there.

For those interested, a more detailed look at the development of our SPI blend maps can be seen here: Tracking drought in Texas: Kicking it down a notch

OSC Publications about Texas Drought

The State Climatologist is often asked to present on drought-related subjects to various state agencies and organizations. A few such presentations are listed here:

• 2011 Texas Drought: A briefing packet for the Texas Legislature, October 31, 2011.

• 2008-2009 Texas Drought: An assessment of the meteorological severity of the 2008-2009 Texas drought through July 2009.