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The Evaporative Stress Index (ESI) provides objective, high-resolution information

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about the evaporation of water from landsurface

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Overall, 2010 showed higher than average evaporation.

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It was a relatively wet year despite occasional pockets of drought.

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But in July, as a high pressure system developed over the Atlantic,

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the ESI started to pick up signs of plant stress in the South East.

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Crops were using less water than they normally do.

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Over the Fall, signs of drought worsened and had spread Northward across much of the Eastern

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part of the U.S.

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The devastating drought that affected Texas in 2011

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started in the winter and was impacting farmers and ranchers across the state by April.

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Wildfires were common that year and cattle had little to eat.

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By the summer of 2011, the ESI shows extremely

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dry conditions across all of Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.

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More than 10 billion dollars in agricultural losses

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for the South were recorded that year.

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The la Nina whether pattern which caused these dry conditions and the resulting economic losses

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lasted through the end of 2011.

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As early as May of this year, the ESI showed plant stress in the Corn Belt region.

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The combination of a heat wave and precipitation deficits drove moisture

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out of the soil. Corns and soybeans, a stable of the global

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food supply, would be severely impacted later in the year.

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The ESI picked up on warning indicators a month before The U.S. Drought Monitor.

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The kind of early-warning detection system it provides