Drought in the United States: 1996 Summary and Historical Perspective

Considerable variation in moisture conditions, on both a spatial and temporal basis, occurred in the contiguous United States during 1996. A tenth or more of the country experienced severe to extreme short-term (i.e., monthly) precipitation deficits during nearly half of the months (Figure 1), but in many months there were also large areas of excessive precipitation, which resulted in overall national conditions averaging near normal to wetter than normal (again, see Figure 1). From a national perspective, long-term drought peaked at mid-year (Figure 2), when severe drought plagued the South and Southwest