Drought disasters in the United States

How common are Drought disasters in the U.S.?

FEMA has issued 46 federal disaster declarations classified as drought between 1964 and 2007, affecting 37 states and territories. Each declaration represents a formal federal recognition that an event exceeded state and local response capacity, unlocking Public Assistance, Individual Assistance, or Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funding depending on the declaration class (DR, EM, or FM). Raw declaration counts therefore measure the federal response footprint, which is a lagging and thresholded indicator: smaller events handled entirely at the state level never appear, and declaration thresholds have been recalibrated over the dataset's multi-decade history.

Annual declaration counts move in fits and starts rather than a smooth trend. The peak year on record was 1977, with 25 drought declarations issued that single year, a clustering driven by major multi-state events and the federal government's declaration cadence. The most recent year on record is 2007, with 1 declarations. Trends over the 43+ year history reflect a mix of policy recalibration and genuine year-to-year hazard variability.

Where these declarations land varies widely by state. The three states with the most drought declarations on record are FM (3 declarations), VI (3 declarations), NJ (2 declarations), largely explained by regional exposure rather than population size alone. States with the fewest declarations, including WA (1), WI (1), WY (1), a sign that most local events here never crossed the federal declaration threshold.