The current drought facing much of the American West is extreme, but is it unusual? According to the report In Times of Drought: Nine Economic Facts about Water in the United States, “Droughts covering 40 percent or more of the country have occurred once in at least eight of the past nine decades.” We may need several more years, or decades, to determine if the current drought reaches truly historic proportions in terms of its impact and duration.

Image from The Hamilton Project report titled In Times of Drought: Nine Economic Facts about Water in the United States.