🌍Global
Series · Climate & Perils
Droughts
The slowest disaster, measured monthly for forty-five years across eight of the world's most drought-prone regions: when the rains fail, how deep the deficit runs, and who carries the loss.
3 episodes
- Source
- CSIC SPEIbase v2.11 (SPEI-12)
- Coverage
- 1980 to 2024 · 8 named regions, monthly
- Catalogue
- 39 drought events
- Peril type
- Climatological (hydrological deficit)
- Updated
- Dec 2024
Current state & record context · experienced risk
Regions in drought now
1 of 8
index below −1 · Dec 2024
Driest region right now
−1.9
Central Mediterranean · SPEI index
Most severe on record
−3.1
Southern Africa interior · 1992
Longest drought detected
15 months
consecutive months below threshold
Droughts detected
39
8 regions · 1980–2024
Ask SarahBeta
New episode: The Slow Emergency
5 Jul 2026
Episodes
1
NEW
Eight regions' drought indices side by side across forty-five years: the dry spells, the recoveries, and where the world stands right now.
2
NEW
Every detected drought in the record: region, start, duration, depth and severity class, sortable and filterable.
3
NEW
Europe's most drought-active tracked region: ten detected events since 1980, capped by the 15-month extreme of 2022-23 that emptied the Po and drove subsidence claims to records.