Each station, displayed in a map viewer, provides a long, continuous record of weather data. Indices include pre-generated heat maps, time series, tabular analyses, and more for the Standardized Precipitation Index, the Standardized Precipitation and Evapotranspiration Index, the Palmer Drought Severity Index, the self-calibrated Palmer Drought Severity Index, the Standardized Streamflow Index, and more. 

This project is intended to provide decision makers with historical drought information and a web-based tool to visualize and assess their risk to drought. A station-based approach lets users find the station closest to their area of interest, as well as a cluster of stations that statistically has shown similar precipitation attributes. The stations with the longest period of record—a minimum of 40 years—with the most complete record were used to compute both the climatological and drought information to provide users with information from the best station data available, through 2017.

The Drought Risk Atlas also recognizes that not every drought index is ideal for every location. By providing several different indices with multiple time steps, it provides users with a menu of options from which to study and investigate drought for their region.