Drought Data and Reports

Pursuant to the Connecticut Drought Preparedness and Response Plan, the following drought indicators are routinely monitored by the Interagency Drought Workgroup for the purposes of analyzing conditions leading up to and during a drought, and to recommend appropriate mitigation actions:

Quantitative criteria include:

  • Cumulative precipitation
  • Groundwater levels
  • Streamflow
  • Drinking water reservoir levels
  • Palmer Drought Severity Index
  • Crop Moisture Index
  • Vegetation Drought Response Index (available only during growing season)
  • Fire danger
  • U.S. Drought Monitor

Qualitative or auxiliary criteria include, but are not limited to:

  • Groundwater trends
  • Streamflow trends
  • Overall public water supply status, including reservoir and wellfield trends
  • Number of public water suppliers with unique water supply situations
  • Number of requests/permits for private domestic well deepening or fracking
  • Agricultural reports
  • Near-term and long-term weather forecasts
  • Northeast Drought Early Warning System (DEWS)

 

Connecticut Drought Information Dashboard

 

Cumulative Precipitation

 

Estimated from various data sources, including official airport weather stations, cooperative weather observers and CoCoRaHS.

Groundwater
  • USGS Ground Water Levels in New England. Monitoring wells are located in varied geologic settings in Connecticut. Clicking on Continuous, Climate Response Network and on Continuous in the upper right corner of the linked map will show real-time results.  Other wells tend to be monitored monthly and their data can be obsolete, depending on changing conditions.  Click on a station, as indicated by a small color-coded circle, to obtain detailed information.
  • USGS table of near real-time ground water levels. Click on a station number to get current hydrograph of water level (up to 31 days, updated once per day)
Streamflow
Drinking Water Supply Reservoirs
Palmer Drought Severity Index
Crop Moisture Index
Vegetation Drought Response Index
Fire Danger
U.S. Drought Monitor