Drought snapshot

The U.S. Drought Monitor released its Vermont map on Sept. 17, 2026, using data valid Sept. 15 at 8 a.m. EDT. The Vermont page lists 49.50% of the state as abnormally dry or worse and 24.18% as moderate drought or worse.

The same table shows no severe, extreme, or exceptional drought in Vermont for that map period. It also shows no week-over-week change from the Sept. 8 row in the supplied table.

The Vermont record is available from the U.S. Drought Monitor at https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?VT. Drought.gov describes the U.S. Drought Monitor as a weekly Thursday product and a joint effort involving the National Drought Mitigation Center, USDA, NOAA, and NASA.

Do not read this as a watering-rule notice

The supplied evidence does not verify any active Vermont state, municipal, or water-system outdoor-watering restriction. It also does not verify that no such restriction exists. No state or local water-use notices are included in the supplied record.

The Vermont Drought Monitor page itself cautions that the map focuses on broad-scale conditions and that local conditions may vary. For landscaping businesses, that means the map can flag drought conditions, but it cannot answer whether a particular client address is under an outdoor-watering rule.

Before treating irrigation, turf-recovery, new-planting care, or water-dependent maintenance as allowed on a normal schedule, contractors would need to check the relevant municipality or water system. That local rules check is outside the supplied evidence.

Landscaping relevance, with limits

For Vermont, the Drought Monitor’s historical D1 impact examples include increased irrigation use, stressed trees and landscaping, and voluntary water conservation requests. Those are historical examples tied to the D1 category, not verified current impacts at a specific Vermont job site.

The Vermont historical impact table lists D2 examples such as golf courses conserving water and outdoor water restrictions being implemented. However, the Sept. 15 state statistics show 0.00% of Vermont in D2-D4.

The supplied pages do not identify which Vermont counties, towns, or mapped areas are in D1 moderate drought, and they do not document current Vermont landscaping, nursery, turf, or new-planting impacts from extension offices, trade associations, state agriculture officials, or state environmental officials.

Evidence

Sources

  1. Primary authority
    droughtmonitor.unl.edu: Vermont | U.S. Drought Monitor
  2. Primary authority
    drought.gov: The U.S. Drought Portal | Drought.gov
  3. Primary authority
    drought.gov: U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM)
  4. Primary authority
    drought.gov: Historical Data and Conditions
  5. Primary authority
    drought.gov: Drought.gov Data Download (GIS and Web-Ready)
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