When compared to the same date in 2023, the affected territory's share rose by 26.53 percentage points in the current year, the sector authorities warned.
Drought continued to advance in the country, passing in the first half of May from 67.97% to 70.76% of the national territory, reported the National Water Commission (Conagua).
“The second heat wave, associated with an anticyclonic circulation in medium levels of the atmosphere, caused a hot to very hot environment throughout the country, increasing the areas with extreme to exceptional drought (D3 to D4) in the northeast, center and west of the country," the report says.
“Severe drought (D2) increased in Oaxaca, southern Veracruz, Chiapas and Tabasco, in the latter state, extreme drought (D3) also emerged. Meanwhile, moderate drought (D1) increased in Chiapas and the Yucatan Peninsula. During the first half of May 2024, the percentage of areas with moderate to exceptional drought (D1 to D4) at the national level was 70.76%, 2.79% higher than at the end of April 2024,” it was reported in the Monitor of the Conagua Drought.
By level, 19.48% of the national territory had moderate drought, 20.10% was in severe stage, 19.36% in extreme conditions, and 11.82% in exceptional drought.
Compared to the April 30 report from Conagua, the category that showed the largest increase was the severe one, which advanced 1.87 percentage points, followed by the moderate drought, which increased by 1.14 points, while the exceptional one increased by just 0.45 points.
On the other hand, the only category of drought that decreased during period was the severe one, with a slight reduction of 0.67 percentage points.
If the percentage of the territory affected as of May 15, 2024 (70.76%) is compared with the same day and month of 2023 (44.23%), there is an increase in the area affected by drought of 26.53 percentage points for the current year.
States and municipalities
As of May 15, the drought had affected 2,105 municipalities, equivalent to 85.2% of the 2,471 total registered in the country.
By degree of impact, between April 30 and May 15, the number of municipalities that were located in D4 (exceptional drought, the most serious degree of shortage), went from 215 to 220. The latter are located in Chihuahua (37), Durango (11), Guanajuato (11), Hidalgo (46), State of Mexico (4), Querétaro (17), San Luis Potosí (42), Sinaloa (8), Sonora (20), Tamaulipas (4), and Veracruz (20).
In turn, there were another 443 municipalities in the country under extreme drought (D3). Another 681 were suffering from severe drought (D2) and 738 were in moderate status (D1).
In addition to these, 323 municipalities more were classified under the abnormally dry category (D0), which means that there has been no rain over the past week.
According to the Conagua report, 17 states had 100% of their territory affected by some degree of drought and they were: Aguascalientes, Logwood, Chiapas, Chihuahua, Mexico City, Durango, Guanajuato, Gentleman, Jalisco, Mexico State, Morelos, Puebla; Querétaro, Sinaloa, Tabasco, Tamaulipas, and Tlaxcala.
In general, out of a total of 31 states, plus Mexico City, only Baja California and Baja California Sur did not show any damage in their territory due to the drought as of May 15.
