Assessing Drought in the United States

CoCoRaHS, Colorado Climate Center

This easy-to-understand video animation describes drought and explains the different categories of drought used by the drought monitor. It discusses the effects of and contributions to drought, what the implications of the different drought levels are, and puts the drought maps into context to understand how the impacts vary geographically (e.g. drought in Nevada vs Kansas - one could affect tourism, the other agriculture). It also touches on how the development of maps/drought severity is determined and how it might vary geographically. The animation provides a basic overview of statistics and percentiles and the concept of '100 year events.'

Click to View

Notes from our reviewers

The CLEAN collection is hand-picked and rigorously reviewed for scientific accuracy and classroom effectiveness. Read what our review team had to say about this resource below or learn more about how CLEAN reviews teaching materials.

This video could be used to introduce topics related to precipitation and drought. It could also be used for teachers participating in the [link https://www.cocorahs.org/ 'CoCoRaHS (the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network)'] precipitation monitoring network to help describe how their data is used and how they can contribute to drought classification.
This video is useful for understanding drought and how drought is classified in the US. This would be a good introduction for many topics related to precipitation. Helps students understand what drought is and how the severity of the drought is categorized. Graphics are entertaining and educational. The overview of percentiles and concept of "100 year events" is presented in a way that is most likely understandable to upper middle school students, high school students, and introductory college students.