What changed
North Carolina’s drought advisory was updated to reflect conditions from Sept. 15, 2026, and the U.S. Drought Monitor map was released Sept. 17. The U.S. Drought Monitor reported 86.09% of the state as abnormally dry or worse and 62.65% in drought. Severe-or-worse drought covered 25.11% of the state, extreme-or-worse drought covered 4.90%, and exceptional drought covered 0.34%.
The North Carolina Drought Management Advisory Council listed 8 counties in D3 extreme drought: Brunswick, Caswell, Guilford, Halifax, Person, Rockingham, Stokes, and Warren. It listed 23 counties in D2 severe drought: Alamance, Bladen, Columbus, Duplin, Forsyth, Franklin, Granville, Greene, Jackson, Lenoir, Macon, Nash, Northampton, Orange, Pitt, Robeson, Surry, Transylvania, Vance, Wake, Wayne, Wilson, and Yadkin.
NC DMAC also classified 40 counties in D1 moderate drought and 17 counties in D0 abnormally dry conditions. For county classifications, NC DMAC uses the highest drought designation that applies to at least 25% of a county’s land area when the U.S. Drought Monitor map shows more than one designation in that county.
The current U.S. Drought Monitor page for North Carolina is at https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?NC. NC DMAC’s advisory page is at https://www.ncdrought.org/.
What it means for the shop
For landscaping companies, the immediate business issue is water availability and customer promises. NC DMAC says all water systems are advised to follow their Water Shortage Response Plans. For D2 areas, NC DMAC urges affected water users to implement those plans if not already enacted, eliminate nonessential water uses, reduce water loss, improve efficiency, consider reuse or recycling, and increase conservation outreach.
For D3 areas, NC DMAC urges affected water users to reduce socially and economically important water uses to preserve water for critical needs such as firefighting, health, and safety. It also urges users to revisit or explore alternative water sources and reuse options.
For D1 areas, NC DMAC urges affected water users to follow local water-use restrictions, project 90-day water needs and supply, assess drought vulnerability, inspect and repair irrigation lines and other delivery-system components, repair leaks, and minimize nonessential water uses.
The U.S. Drought Monitor’s historic impact examples for North Carolina include increased irrigation and drought-stressed trees and landscapes at lower categories, possible water-use restrictions at D2, and landscaping or greenhouse revenue losses and outdoor burn bans as historical D3 impacts. Those examples are not proof that the same impacts are happening at every current job site.
What remains unknown
The supplied records do not show which municipalities or water systems have active irrigation schedules, mandatory restrictions, fines, or exemptions for new sod, plant establishment, irrigation testing, or commercial landscape work.
The supplied records also do not verify current county or municipal burn bans. Burn bans appear in the U.S. Drought Monitor material as historically observed D3 impacts, not as a current statewide or county-specific order.
Local conditions may vary. The U.S. Drought Monitor states that its map focuses on broad-scale conditions, and NC DMAC’s county classification may not match conditions at every property within a listed county.
Before scheduling irrigation-dependent work, shops should check the customer’s water provider and municipality, not just the county drought category. The authoritative state and federal records establish the drought advisory; they do not establish the local rulebook for each service area.
Sources
- Primary authority
droughtmonitor.unl.edu: North Carolina | U.S. Drought Monitor - Primary authority
drought.gov: North Carolina - Interested party
ncdrought.org: North CarolinaDrought Management Advisory Council - Primary authority
drought.gov: North Carolina