NWS Mobile CWA Historical Droughts

NWS Mobile/Pensacola Historical Droughts
Period of Record 2000 to Present

You would think that one of the rainiest places in the nation can't possibly experience too many drought episodes, but a look back over recent history tells a much different story. That is, occurrences of drought are more common than you think and in fact a routine phenomena over the central Gulf coast. There have only been two years since the year 2000 that we did not see an emergence of drought. That was in 2003 and 2005. The most significant historical droughts noted by being severe and greater by the length of duration and the highest intensity coverage for the 20 county warning area are highlighted on this page.

The first two graphs shows the longest duration of severe drought (D2) or higher that impacted the local area and accumulated precipitation departures against the normal for that event, encompassing an astounding nearly two year time-span. Severe drought began to emerge September 14th, 2010 and maintained a solid grip through June 5th, 2012. During this period, extreme (D3) to exceptional (D4) drought intensity expanded during the summer months of 2011. Precipitation departures plunged to between 30 and 40 inches below normal for a few sites by January 2012, continuing into the Spring that year.

The next two graphs shows the most intense drought of exceptional (D4) strength impacting the largest land area of the central Gulf coast over the summer of 2000 and the accumulated rainfall departures for this event. Exceptional drought emerged at over 70% coverage of the local area in July 2000 only to intensify in August and September. For the most part, exceptional drought hung on into the Fall of 2000 before conditions improved to close out the year. Precipitation departures dove to between 20 and 30 inches below normal for most sites by late Summer 2000 and lingered at these ranges below normal the remainder of the year.

To view local drought period of record history in it's entirety over the NWS Mobile/Pensacola's county warning area, please refer to the link => NWS Mobile Historical Drought.