The Drought Dilemma: Understanding Rapid Drought Development and its Potential Impacts to U.S. Winter Wheat Agriculture in the Southern Great Plains

Flash droughts (FDs) are a highly impactful, subseasonal to seasonal phenomenon that pose a serious threat to several groups of stakeholders, including agricultural producers. Given the speed of rapid drought intensification that occurs with FDs, there is less time for farmers to implement mitigation strategies and remain resilient to drought impacts. Several recent FDs (2012 Central United States FD, 2017 Northern Great Plains FD) have caused billions of dollars of crop loss within the United States, severely impacting local farmers and the larger US economy. This study aims to quantify the impacts of several FD events that have occurred across a vital region of winter wheat agriculture within the Southern Great Plains. These FD episodes were analyzed over a 40-year period from 1981 to 2020, with emphasis on investigating this phenomenon during the defined growing season from March to October. Using the standardized evaporative stress ratio (SESR) for flash drought identification, events were selected based on several factors, including spatial coverage and the spontaneous nature of onset and spread of drought conditions across the region. Analysis of these events revealed that FD episodes can occur during almost every month of the defined growing season. Further, FD events from July to October contribute to increased agricultural impacts to winter wheat and decrease the resiliency of winter wheat for the following growing season, as these events enhance negative soil moisture anomalies from the time of planting through much of the growing season.