US Drought 2026: How Bad It Is, and the Driest States
About 40% of the country is in drought this July. But the deepest rainfall deficits of 2026 aren't in the desert — they're in the Southeast. We ranked every state's shortfall against 139 million NOAA daily records.
As of the July 7, 2026 US Drought Monitor, about 40% of the United States — and roughly 47% of the Lower 48 — is in drought, with 45 states carrying at least some Moderate Drought (D1) or worse. Serious — but that top-line number has barely budged since spring, and it buries the year's real surprise.
But the headline map hides the more interesting story of 2026, and it's one you won't find on the official pages: the biggest rainfall deficits this year aren't in Nevada or Arizona, where dryness is the baseline. They're in the Southeast. We pulled every state's precipitation for January 1 through July 10 straight from NOAA station records and measured it against the last ten years. Arkansas is down about 12 inches. North Carolina is down 10. Those are wet states that simply got skipped by the rain — and that's a different, faster kind of drought than the slow desert grind out West.
How Bad Is It Right Now?
The official gauge is the US Drought Monitor, updated every Thursday by NOAA, the USDA and the University of Nebraska. Its July 7 map put 39.6% of the US and Puerto Rico, and 47.2% of the Lower 48, in drought — a slight easing from late June, when Lower-48 coverage brushed 48%. Within that, roughly 8% of the country sits in the two worst categories, Extreme (D3) and Exceptional (D4) drought.
NOAA's drought.gov summary singled out five states where conditions worsened in early July: Oregon, Wyoming, Colorado, North Carolina and South Carolina. That list is worth holding onto — because four of those five also show up near the top of our own independent rainfall-deficit ranking below. When the official monitor and a raw rain-gauge tally agree, you can trust the signal.
The Driest States of 2026 So Far, Ranked
Ranked by percent of normal rainfall for January 1 through July 10, driest first, from our NOAA station data. “Deficit” is how many inches short of the 2015–2024 average each state is running. This is a “driest states of 2026” list — a deficit ranking — which is a very different thing from the driest places in America in an average year.
| State | 2026 rain* | Normal | Deficit | % of normal | What's going on |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arizona | 3.2" | 5.2" | −1.9" | 62% | A dry winter and spring ahead of the monsoon — a small deficit in inches, but a big one on an already-tiny base. |
| North Carolina | 17.6" | 28.0" | −10.3" | 63% | The most anomalous drought in the country: a normally-wet state that has simply been skipped by the rain. |
| Arkansas | 20.8" | 32.8" | −12.0" | 63% | The single biggest rainfall shortfall of any state — nearly a foot of rain that never fell. |
| Colorado | 8.3" | 12.3" | −4.0" | 68% | A weak snowpack winter across the Rockies; flagged by the Drought Monitor as worsening in early July. |
| South Carolina | 18.1" | 26.5" | −8.4" | 68% | Same Southeast rain hole as North Carolina; also flagged as worsening this month. |
| Nevada | 6.7" | 9.5" | −2.8" | 70% | The driest state in absolute terms in any year — and running well under even its own meager normal. |
| Virginia | 17.9" | 24.9" | −7.0" | 72% | The northern edge of the Mid-Atlantic dry spell, seven inches short of a normal half-year. |
| Wyoming | 9.5" | 12.8" | −3.4" | 74% | High-plains and mountain deficit; also on the Drought Monitor’s worsening list. |
| California | 10.9" | 14.7" | −3.8" | 74% | A drier-than-normal wet season leaves reservoirs and hillsides primed as fire season builds. |
| Tennessee | 25.2" | 33.8" | −8.7" | 74% | Part of the same mid-South shortfall running from Arkansas across to the Carolinas. |
| Utah | 9.2" | 12.2" | −3.0" | 75% | Another light snowpack year in the Great Basin — the Great Salt Lake’s watershed stays short. |
| Nebraska | 10.7" | 14.2" | −3.5" | 75% | The southern Plains dryness that also has Oklahoma running near two-thirds of normal. |
*Cumulative rainfall January 1 – July 10, 2026, averaged across each state's well-covered NOAA stations (those reporting at least 170 of the ~191 days). “Normal” is the same window averaged over 2015–2024 for the same stations. See the methodology note at the end. Query run July 13, 2026.
There Are Really Two Droughts in 2026
Read the table carefully and you'll see it splits into two very different stories.
The desert deficit. Arizona (62% of normal), Nevada (70%), Utah (75%) and New Mexico are dry — but they're dry every year, and January-to-July is their arid season anyway, before the summer monsoon arrives. Arizona's shortfall is only about two inches in raw terms, because there isn't much rain to miss. This is the chronic, decades-long dryness of the West — part of a 21st-century megadrought that a 2022 study in Nature Climate Change found is the driest 22-year stretch the Southwest has seen in roughly 1,200 years.
The Southeast hole. This is the surprise. Arkansas (down 12.0 inches), North Carolina (down 10.3), Tennessee (down 8.7), South Carolina (down 8.4) and Virginia (down 7.0) are all normally humid, rain-soaked states — and they've each missed the better part of a foot of rain in half a year. Because they start from a high baseline, their percent deficit looks similar to the desert's, but the volume of missing water is enormous. This is the signature of a flash drought: a wet region that falls far behind fast, when weeks of skipped storms meet a hot, thirsty atmosphere. You can watch a place's recent slide yourself — Charlotte, Raleigh, Nashville and Little Rock all have full precipitation histories on their city pages.
One honest caveat, because it actually strengthens the point: our “normal” here is the 2015–2024 average, and that decade was itself a drought-heavy stretch for the West. So the desert's deficit is understated against a longer-term normal — while the Southeast, whose baseline decade was near-average, is genuinely, unusually short.
Drought and Wildfire: the Same Map
Drought doesn't light fires, but it loads the gun. Every inch of missing rain dries out grass, brush and timber, dropping fuel moisture until a single spark — lightning, a dragging chain, a downed line — can run. That's why the driest states out West line up so tightly with the ones burning: California (74% of normal) heads into late summer with hills already cured, and the interior West is primed. You can see where the fires actually are right now on our live wildfire tracker, and read how a strong El Niño is shaping this year's fire risk in our 2026 wildfire season analysis.
The Southeast's flash drought carries its own fire risk — the Carolinas saw a rash of wildfires during past dry springs — but its bigger near-term bite is agricultural: pasture stress, low farm ponds, and rivers running thin right through growing season.
How 2026 Stacks Up Against the Big Ones
At around 40–47% of the country in drought, 2026 is a serious year but not a record-shattering one. For scale: at the peak of the 2012 drought — the worst since the Dust Bowl — the US Drought Monitor had roughly two-thirds of the Lower 48 in drought, and it devastated the Corn Belt. The 1930s Dust Bowl itself predates our daily records, which begin around 1950, so we lean on NOAA's historical reconstructions for that era. And the ongoing Southwest megadrought, running since 2000, is the driest multi-decade stretch in twelve centuries even if any single year in it looks unremarkable.
What makes 2026 stand out isn't the total — it's the geography. Drought years are usually a Western story. This one has planted its deepest deficits in the humid Southeast, which is why it's catching farmers and water managers there off guard.
Will El Niño Break It?
Maybe — and the timing could be good for the states hurting most. A strong El Niño tends to drag a wetter, more active storm track across the southern tier of the country in winter, which historically eases drought across the South and Southwest. The Pacific Northwest usually goes the other way, drier. The developing 2026 super El Niño — which forecasters now rate as potentially one of the strongest on record — is a real reason the coming winter could help refill Arkansas, the Carolinas and the Southern Plains.
Between now and then, summer relief rides on two things: the Southwest monsoon for the desert, and tropical systems for the Southeast — a single stalled tropical downpour can erase months of deficit in a wet state (and cause flooding in the process). Track the season on our 2026 hurricane season page. For the long-term picture, the driest cities in America and the rainiest ones show where the wet-and-dry lines usually fall.
Check the rain history for any US city
Want to know how far behind your own town is? Our historical weather tool pulls decades of daily precipitation for more than 300 US cities — look up Phoenix, Denver, Richmond or anywhere else.
Look up any city's weather history →Frequently Asked Questions
How much of the US is in drought right now?
As of the July 7, 2026 US Drought Monitor, about 40% of the US (39.6% including Puerto Rico) and roughly 47% of the Lower 48 are in drought (D1 or worse), with 45 states carrying at least some drought. That's a slight improvement from late June.
What is the driest state in 2026?
By share of its normal rainfall, Arizona is driest (about 62% of average, Jan 1–Jul 10). But the biggest deficit in actual inches is in the Southeast: Arkansas is down about 12 inches and North Carolina down 10 — wet states running unusually dry.
Does drought cause wildfires?
Drought doesn't start fires, but it primes the land: rainfall deficits dry out fuels so any ignition spreads faster and hotter. That's why the driest Western states line up with the most active fire seasons — see our live wildfire tracker.
What is a flash drought?
A drought that develops in weeks rather than months, when little rain combines with heat and wind that pull moisture from the soil fast. Much of the Southeast's 2026 dryness is exactly this — a wet region that fell far behind quickly.
Will El Niño end the drought?
It could ease parts of it. A strong El Niño usually brings a wetter winter to the southern US, which historically helps the South and Southwest (while leaving the Pacific Northwest drier). The developing 2026 super El Niño is a reason the coming winter could refill the Southeast and Southern Plains.
Methodology
State deficits were computed from our archive of NOAA GHCN-Daily records (the same 139-million-row dataset behind our city weather-history tool). For each state we summed precipitation over January 1 – July 10, 2026 for every station reporting at least 170 of the ~191 days, averaged those station totals to a state figure, and compared it to the same calendar window averaged over 2015–2024 for the same stations. States needed at least eight qualifying stations to be ranked. Precipitation is stored in tenths of a millimeter (inches = value ÷ 254). “% of normal” is measured against the 2015–2024 mean — a 10-year reference, not the official 1991–2020 NOAA normal, which shifts some Western figures. Official drought-coverage percentages, the worst-hit-states list, and the megadrought finding are from the US Drought Monitor, NOAA drought.gov, and Williams et al. (2022), Nature Climate Change. Query run July 13, 2026.