Interesting. I assumed that the fall patterns must have had some similarities, since we also had widespread drought that year. How did such disparate fall patterns each produce a widespread CONUS drought?
In fact, if you look at the weekly drought monitor, this week had the least amount of area not in D0-D4 since the map began being published at the beginning of 2000 [25 years]. It narrowly beat out 2022's peak, almost to the exact same day of the year.