About the individual drought indicators

The individual indicators are displayed at a 1km² gridded resolution. This allows readers to explore the indicator values (percentile scale 0-100) at a much higher level of detail.

The colour scale for each map transitions to a grey scale at the 30^th percentile. The 30^th percentile is one of the thresholds that DPI uses to monitor drought intensity (the threshold for Drought Affected). The grey scale also shows the 5^th percentile used to delineate Drought and Intense Drought.

The Soil Water, Plant Growth and Rainfall indicators are all calculated by taking the aggregate of daily values over the last 12 months and ranking them relative to a 40-year baseline period. This configuration is used to detect moderate to severe drought events with a multiple season duration. The indicators track large changes and are not overtly sensitive to day-to-day or recent conditions over the past month, so lag physical conditions in the field at the time of observation.