{"id":82216,"date":"2026-04-18T17:24:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T21:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/?p=82216"},"modified":"2026-04-18T17:24:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T21:24:19","slug":"signs-severe-drought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/signs-severe-drought\/","title":{"rendered":"Signs: Severe Drought"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>From AP:<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dims.apnews.com\/dims4\/default\/d3a558b\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/4240x2832+0+0\/resize\/319x213!\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.apnews.com%2Fef%2F6e%2F6955fad7702e05b9343446770660%2F84d6541a23164767a23d4a3ec88017fe\" alt=\"Philip Anderson walks across a dry stock pond March 31, 2026, in Walden, Colo. (AP Photo\/Brittany Peterson, File)\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Drought in the contiguous United States has reached record levels for this time of year, weather data shows. Meteorologists said it\u2019s a bad sign for the upcoming wildfire season, food prices and western water issues.\u00a0More than 61% of the Lower 48 states is in moderate to exceptional drought \u2014 including 97% of the Southeast and two-thirds of the West \u2014 according to the\u00a0<span class=\"LinkEnhancement\"><a class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" href=\"https:\/\/droughtmonitor.unl.edu\/CurrentMap.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\">U.S. Drought Monitor<\/a><\/span>. It\u2019s the highest levels for this time of year since the drought monitor began in 2000.<\/p>\n<p>The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s comprehensive\u00a0<span class=\"LinkEnhancement\"><a class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ncei.noaa.gov\/access\/monitoring\/climate-at-a-glance\/national\/time-series\/110\/pdsi\/1\/3\/1895-2026\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\">Palmer Drought Severity Index<\/a><\/span>\u00a0not only hit its highest level for March since records started in 1895, but last month was the third-driest month recorded regardless of time of year.<\/p>\n<div class=\"gsp_post_data\" \r\n\t            data-post_type=\"post\" \r\n\t            data-cat=\"news\" \r\n\t            data-modified=\"120\"\r\n\t            data-created=\"1776533059\"\r\n\t            data-title=\"Signs: Severe Drought\" \r\n\t            data-home=\"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From AP: Drought in the contiguous United States has reached record levels for this time of year, weather data shows..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-82216","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-news","7":"entry"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}