Flash Drought Risk Tool (Flash DRT)

Flash drought is a relatively new term referring to drought conditions with a rapid and intense onset.  Unlike more traditional droughts that tend to develop slowly over time, flash drought’s rate of intensification are due to more environmental factors that just a lack of precipitation.  An improved understanding of these combined environmental factors could help provide advance warning a week or two in advance for planners and decision makers to be more proactive than reactive should flash drought occur.  Through the support of the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), environmental parameters will be examined to determine a statistically significant model that could be applied to forecasted data.  A risk tool could incorporate that model and provide automated alerts to registered users where the development of a flash drought is possible.