Is the US Drought Really That Extraordinary?

Despite all the headlines, I am not convinced the current U.S. drought is that exceptional, compared to history. I'm sure it's very tough for farmers, and will be for those who will be buying their food, but farming has always been a tough business.

Here is data on the U.S. Drought Monitor, which looks broadly at the U.S.

The following are plots of the percent of the U.S. counties that is "moderately to extremely dry," going back over a century. Granted, this is a broader brush than the information above, since it puts an area in one of two bins instead of five.

So it definitely shows a serious drought today -- but it's akin to about a dozen that have occurred since 1895, and is not as severe as the 1934 or the mid-1950s (which was both broader and longer). Perhaps the spike are becoming a little more frequent in recent decades, but that's not obvious (unlike what Paul Krugman wrote).

Here's the 12-month moving average, which makes things a little clearer:

And here is the dry area 12-month percentage expressed as its standard deviation from the mean:

The current drought looks like a fairly normal drought, at least so far, with no evidence of "Dust Bowlification." (Notice how Romm sneaks in a plot of heat when writing about drought. They're not the same thing.)

I'm sure many farmers are being seriously affected. But farming has always been a tough business (which is why we have price supports). I just don't see an extraordinary drought in this data, but an ordinary drought.