More than 61% of the lower 48 United States is experiencing moderate to exceptional drought, including 97% of the Southeast and two-thirds of the West, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. This represents the highest levels of drought for this time of year since the monitor began recording data in 2000. Meteorologists said the severe spring conditions raise concerns about an intensified wildfire season, western water shortages, and rising food prices.
The unusual severity of spring drought — when the condition typically peaks in summer — is what concerns meteorologists most. The combination of two separate weather patterns affecting the country simultaneously raises questions about how conditions may intensify as the year progresses.
Record Severity and Dual Causes
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Palmer Drought Severity Index reached its highest level for March since records began in 1895, and March 2026 ranked as the third-driest month on record regardless of season. Only July and August 1934—the depths of the Dust Bowl—were drier.
Brian Fuchs, a climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center, emphasized the anomaly. “Right now 61% of the country is in drought and that’s steadily been going up for the calendar year,” Fuchs said. “We just haven’t seen too many springs where this amount of the country has been in this kind of shape.”
Two distinct weather systems are driving the crisis. In the West, record heat has depressed snow accumulation during what should be the region’s crucial winter-storage season. Simultaneously, a separate drought in the South stems from the jet stream keeping storms further north. The resulting water deficits are extreme: eastern Texas would need 19 inches of rain in a single month to break its drought, while most of the Southeast requires more than a foot of rain.
Fire, Water, and Agricultural Cascades
Park Williams, a hydroclimatologist at UCLA, highlighted the measure of atmospheric stress known as vapor pressure deficit—the capacity of hot, dry air to extract moisture from the landscape. In the West, it stands at 77% above normal and exceeds the previous record for the January-through-March period by more than 25%.
“That level of moisture-sucking from the ground wouldn’t have appeared possible before now,” Williams said.
Because drought typically peaks in summer rather than spring, this early severity multiplies the risks for the coming months. “Fire tends to respond to heat and drought in an exponential manner,” Williams said. “For each degree of warming, you get a bigger bang in terms of fire than you got from the previous degree of warming.”
In Arizona, the drought’s effects are already visible: cacti are blooming months ahead of schedule. For communities dependent on the Colorado River, the outlook is more troubling. Kathy Jacobs, director of the Center for Climate Adaptation Science and Solutions at the University of Arizona, described a critical gap in regional planning. “Those of us who are dependent on the Colorado River are very concerned about the fact that we don’t have a negotiated path forward in the middle of what appears to be possibly the worst year of drought that we’ve all experienced,” Jacobs said. “We have lots of reservoirs that are not full.”
Yale Climate Connections meteorologist Jeff Masters emphasized agricultural exposure. If the United States faces a poor crop year, the effects ripple globally. A strong El Niño weather oscillation is predicted, and El Niño often reduces crop yields in regions like India and across the developing world.
Climate Change Amplifies the Risk
The drought reflects both natural climate variability and human-caused climate change, though natural factors—randomness in atmospheric patterns—currently play a slightly larger role in this particular event, according to Williams.
Yet Jacobs offered essential context about the larger trajectory. “All weather is now affected by climate change,” Jacobs said. “There is no such thing as weather that’s divorced from climate trends. But this extreme event is extreme in the way that we’ve been expecting: extreme heat waves, intense drought.”