Drought just hit a 3-year low. Here is how that is a bad thing in four maps.

Reported and visualized U.S. drought data for a social-first story showing that only 35% of the lower 48 states experienced drought leading up to Earth Day 2023—the lowest in three years—while contextualizing the ongoing crisis in the Colorado River Basin. Built the drought map in R with data analysis in Python, prioritizing color accessibility and design for colorblind readers to ensure the data was immediately understandable across platforms.