Following the short term period of drought during the summer of 1999, the State of Rhode Island set forth a course to establish a Drought Management Plan, incorporating a variety of interests including state and local agencies, local universities, water conservation interests as well as the many water suppliers. The National Weather Service Office in Taunton has been a key member of this diverse group and has worked with this task force in developing the drought classifications used in their plan.

The task force has adopted a classification scheme modeled after the National Weather Service's Watch/Warning program, and uses a series of indices, rainfall and stream flow departures to best determine the current drought status. This paper will review this classification scheme employed in the plan and will use the droughts of 1963-65, 1980-81, and 1999 as examples of its use.