Texas Drought Conditions (US Drought Monitor, Current)

Current drought severity across Texas, clipped from the weekly US Drought Monitor. 57% of the state is at least abnormally dry. Bands run D0 abnormally dry through D4 exceptional. 28% is in moderate drought or worse. Each polygon is a single severity class, not a cumulative area — the Drought Monitor's classes are disjoint at this endpoint, which was verified rather than assumed, since the same data is often distributed as nested shapes where D1 contains D2 and code written for one shape silently miscounts the other. Every polygon also carries an 'or worse' figure, summing it with every more severe class, which is how the Drought Monitor reports its own headline numbers. Areas are computed on the Texas Albers equal-area projection rather than in degrees. The Drought Monitor is a joint product of the National Drought Mitigation Center, USDA and NOAA, published every Thursday and reflecting conditions through the preceding Tuesday — it is an assessment, not a measurement, combining precipitation, soil moisture, streamflow and local expert input.

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