Mapping Drought
In 2012, the continental United States suffered through one of its worst droughts in decades. With another summer upon us, drought continues to be a problem for many parts of the country. Using data from NASA’s GRACE satellites and other satellite and ground-based measurements, scientists have created maps that show the amount of water in the U.S. stored near the surface and underground from August 2002 through May 2013. The maps provide two views of monthly changes in water storage: the wetness in the “root zone," or the top meter of soil, and the ground water storage in shallow aquifers. The color-coded maps express how much water is stored as a probability of occurrence from 1948 to 2009, where red colors represent places that are dryer than normal, and blue colors represent places that are wetter than normal. Watch the visualization to see how water storage in the U.S. changes over time.
Scientists model changes in water storage related to weather, climate and seasonal patterns.
The darkest red regions represent dry conditions that should occur only 2 percent of the time (about once every 50 years).
This image shows root zone soil moisture on June 3, 2013. Portions of Arizona, Nevada and California are extremely dry, even by desert standards.
This image shows ground water storage on June 3, 2013. The Rocky Mountain states and most of Texas appear abnormally dry.
The maps are based on data collected by NASA's GRACE satellites, which launched into space in 2002.
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Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Earth Observatory
Maps courtesy of NDMC/C. Poulsen and NASA/GSFC/GRACE/M. Rodell
GRACE image courtesy of NASA
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Animator
- Robert Simmon (Sigma Space Corporation)
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Writer
- Adam P. Voiland (Sigma Space Corporation)
Release date
This page was originally published on Tuesday, July 30, 2013.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:51 PM EDT.