Flash Drought Risk and Agricultural Exposure in the Southeast United States

Sep 01, 2026

Flash drought can develop quickly, sometimes transforming relatively normal conditions into significant drought in just a few weeks. That rapid development makes flash drought detection particularly challenging in the Southeastern United States, where frequent rainfall can be followed by short periods of intense heat and little precipitation.

A new study examined flash drought risk across the Southeast from 2001–2023 and how the timing of these events overlaps with periods when major crops are most sensitive to water stress. Researchers compared four approaches for identifying flash drought: the Soil Moisture Volatility Index, Evaporative Stress Index, Lawn and Garden Moisture Index, and rapid changes in the U.S. Drought Monitor. Although the methods differed in how frequently they identified flash drought, they showed several common patterns. Flash drought occurred somewhere in the Southeast every year during the study period, and events were most common in early summer and again in the fall.

Source : noaa.gov

Video: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

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