Climatological Analysis of Flash Drought Criteria
Stuart Edris is a MS student at OU’s School of Meteorology. He graduated from OU in 2018 with two bachelor degrees; one in meteorology and another in geography. Stuart then became a graduate student on the meteorology side to do more math and coding. He has been working as a research assistant for Dr. Jeff Basara for a year or so, and plans to finish his Master’s degree during summer 2020.
Abstract
Flash droughts are recently recognized phenomena involving the rapid intensification of drought (over ∼ 1 month). The rapidly drying conditions that describe flash droughts can quickly desiccate the land- scape, creating large agricultural and environmental impacts. Flash droughts can also help a region transition into normal drought and, sometimes, heat wave conditions. To this end, recent focus has been placed on being able to accurately classify and identify flash drought events. In the past year, a method was created to do this that would work on any gridded dataset. This method uses the standardized evaporative stress ratio (SESR) to determine several criteria that look for rapid drying and general drought conditions. We will examine the climatology of each criterion used in this method, using a 38-year dataset from the NARR model. In addition, we will split these criteria into drought and rapid intensification components to determine which plays a more prominent role in the development of flash droughts.