This week's drought map, and your water plan on top of it
In the map week of 8 September 2026, the U.S. Drought Monitor puts 101.8 million people inside an area it rates at moderate drought or worse, and 187.4 million inside an area rated abnormally dry or worse. Forty-six of the fifty-two states and territories it covers have some part of them in moderate drought. This page gives you your own state's five numbers, the people behind them, and how fast they moved, so that the map stops being weather news and starts being an input to a plan.
The five bands, and how they moved
Pick a state. The percentages are the share of its area in each class or anything worse, straight from the Drought Monitor, and the count is its own population figure. The three trend numbers compare the same measure, D1 or worse, with a week ago, a month ago and the same week last year, which is the comparison that tells you whether this is a dry spell or a direction.
D0 is not drought, and that matters
The Drought Monitor is not a rainfall measurement. It is a weekly judgement, made by a rotating set of authors who read dozens of indicators at once: precipitation, soil moisture, streamflow, reservoir and groundwater levels, snowpack, and reports from people on the ground. That is why it can disagree with your rain gauge, and why it is more useful than one.
D0, abnormally dry. Not a drought class. It marks land going into drought, with short-term dryness slowing planting or growth, or land coming out of one, with deficits still unrecovered.
D1, moderate drought. Some damage to crops and pastures, streams and wells running low, and voluntary water-use restrictions requested. This is the line most of this page uses.
D2, severe drought. Likely crop or pasture losses, common water shortages, restrictions imposed rather than requested.
D3, extreme drought. Major losses, widespread shortages and restrictions.
D4, exceptional drought. Exceptional and widespread losses, shortages in reservoirs, streams and wells creating water emergencies. This week it covers part of twelve states, led by Colorado at 13.5 per cent of its area and Oklahoma at 13.1.
The percentages are cumulative on purpose. A state with 74 per cent in D1 has 74 per cent in moderate drought or worse, not 74 per cent stuck at exactly moderate.
Every state, the week of 8 September 2026
Sorted by the share of the state in moderate drought or worse. The last column is the same measure a year ago, which is where the story usually is: Oklahoma went from 1.8 per cent to 99.8, Louisiana from 0.1 to 81.4, and Minnesota from nothing at all to 70.7.
| State | D0+ | D1+ | D2+ | D3+ | D4 | People in D1+ | D1+ a year ago |
|---|
Source: U.S. Drought Monitor (NDMC, USDA, NOAA), map weeks of 8 September 2026 and 9 September 2025, read 11 Sept 2026. All figures are cumulative percentages of state area, except the people column, which is the Drought Monitor's own population estimate for D1 or worse.
Three honest uses for this
Know whether your plan is being tested. A rain-fed plan is sized on an average year. The rain barrel calculator uses your state's 1991 to 2020 average rainfall, which is exactly the number a drought is a departure from. If your state sits high on this table, the roof is giving you less than that page assumes, and the gap is widest in the months you would most want the water.
Read the trend, not the week. One week means almost nothing; a year means a great deal. New Hampshire went from 19.2 per cent to 54.6 in seven days, which is weather. Oklahoma went from 1.8 per cent to 99.8 in twelve months, which is not. The tool above gives you both so you can tell them apart.
Do the cheap thing before the clever one. Drought does not change the order of operations in this chapter. What you have stored still matters most, what your roof catches still comes second, and pulling water out of the air is still the hardest way to get it, which part vi puts numbers on. If the map is moving against you, the useful reaction is to check the storage you already have and its rotation, not to buy a machine.
When the well is the thing that runs out
The map says something about a region; a dry well says everything about one house. This is a homeowner walking through his own well going dry and what he did next. It is his work and his conclusions, shown here with his embed enabled, and we make no prediction about any well including yours.
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- i.How much water your house needs, and the Water Freedom System review
- ii.Rain barrel calculator, by state
- iii.48 hours without power: a small apartment's quiet plan
- iv.A 30-day pantry, priced with this month's numbers
- v.Generator vs. battery: what your state's outages say
- vi.Water from air, explained by the humidity where you live
- vii.This week's drought map, and your plan on top of it
- viii.Filter, treat, test: making stored water drinkable
- ix.The blackout kit you already own
Questions people ask
How many people in the United States are in drought right now?
What do D0, D1, D2, D3 and D4 mean?
Does drought mean my well will run dry?
Is this map live?
Why does the Drought Monitor disagree with my rain gauge?
Last updated: 11 September 2026. Figures are the U.S. Drought Monitor's own for the map week shown, with the date we read them. Nothing here is a forecast.
How we stay honest: every percentage and every count on this page is the U.S. Drought Monitor's own, for the map week stated, with the date we read it. The only arithmetic of ours is adding the state population figures into a national one, and we say so. We make no forecast, no claim about any particular well or water supply, and nothing here is engineering or legal advice about water use where you live. The video belongs to the creator credited above.