Five Years of Drought

This is a map showing over five years of drought data (285 weeks, combined into a single view) in the United States.

The dots are proportionally sized by the amount of time over the past five years spent in drought (the largest dots representing 80% – 100% of the time), and the color is a weighted value of the overall intensity of those droughts (deep purple indicates frequent “exceptional” drought, the most severe category).