Rain and Drought Records Collection

10-Year Historical Records

Author

Antigravity Coding Assistant

Published

July 19, 2026

Code 
import sys
sys.path.append('.')
from rainDrought.config import get_config
config = get_config()
Code 
from rainDrought.visualizations import show_collect_data_intro
show_collect_data_intro(config)

Introduction

This document contains Python code to programmatically retrieve, process, and store 10-year historical climate records for: 1. Weekly Drought Monitor records for Oglala Lakota County (FIPS 46102), South Dakota. 1. Weekly Drought Monitor records for Todd County (FIPS 46121), South Dakota.

  1. Daily Precipitation records for the State of South Dakota (state-wide mean).

The collected datasets are saved to the data/ directory.

[!NOTE] Active Region Configuration: Default configured for South Dakota (precipitation) and counties: Oglala Lakota County (Pine Ridge), Todd County (Rosebud). To customize these locations, copy the layout from config.csv.default (or the example from config.csv.example) into a new config.csv file and re-run.

Data Sources & Citations

  1. U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM)
    • Source: National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC), University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USDA, and NOAA.
    • Description: Weekly reports of drought severity classifications (None, D0-D4) indicating the percentage of area affected.
    • Data Access: Retrieved via the USDM REST Data Services API: https://usdmdataservices.unl.edu/api/.
    • Citation: > U.S. Drought Monitor. (2026). U.S. Drought Monitor data archives. National Drought Mitigation Center. Retrieved from https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/
  2. Applied Climate Information System (ACIS)
    • Source: NOAA Regional Climate Centers (RCCs).
    • Description: Daily precipitation observations aggregated and interpolated across the state of South Dakota, computed as a statewide mean.
    • Data Access: Retrieved via the ACIS GridData API: https://data.rcc-acis.org/GridData.
    • Citation: > Applied Climate Information System (ACIS). (2026). Gridded Daily Precipitation (NRCC Interpolated Grid). NOAA Regional Climate Centers. Retrieved from https://www.rcc-acis.org/

Data Collection Pipeline

The following Python block dynamically computes the date range for the past 10 years and calls the respective APIs to fetch and store the records.

Code 
from rainDrought.data_pipeline import run_pipeline
run_pipeline(config)
Active State: South Dakota (sd)
Active Counties:
  - Oglala Lakota County (FIPS: 46102, Label: Pine Ridge)
  - Todd County (FIPS: 46121, Label: Rosebud)

Timeframe: 2016-08-27 to 2026-08-27
Querying USDM API for Oglala Lakota County...
-> Successfully saved weekly drought data to data/oglala_lakota_drought_weekly.csv
Querying USDM API for Todd County...
-> Successfully saved weekly drought data to data/todd_drought_weekly.csv
Querying ACIS GridData API...
-> Successfully saved daily precipitation data to data/south_dakota_precipitation_daily.csv

Data Previews & Summaries

Let’s load the saved datasets to verify their content and print summary statistics.

Code 
from rainDrought.data_pipeline import show_summaries
show_summaries(config)

U.S. Drought Monitor Data Summary (Oglala Lakota County)

Weekly USDM records: 523

ValidStart County None D0 D1 D2 D3 D4
518 2026-07-28 Oglala Lakota County 0.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 33.84 0.0
519 2026-08-04 Oglala Lakota County 0.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 43.18 0.0
520 2026-08-11 Oglala Lakota County 0.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 43.18 0.0
521 2026-08-18 Oglala Lakota County 0.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 43.18 0.0
522 2026-08-25 Oglala Lakota County 0.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 43.18 0.0

Oglala Lakota County Drought Summary Stats

None D0 D1 D2 D3 D4
count 523.000000 523.000000 523.000000 523.000000 523.000000 523.0
mean 34.449675 65.550325 47.576922 18.856979 5.238126 0.0
std 46.167434 46.167434 46.299453 33.810416 17.039506 0.0
min 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.0
25% 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.0
50% 0.000000 100.000000 42.270000 0.000000 0.000000 0.0
75% 100.000000 100.000000 100.000000 17.450000 0.000000 0.0
max 100.000000 100.000000 100.000000 100.000000 97.570000 0.0

U.S. Drought Monitor Data Summary (Todd County)

Weekly USDM records: 523

ValidStart County None D0 D1 D2 D3 D4
518 2026-07-28 Todd County 0.0 100.0 100.00 0.0 0.0 0.0
519 2026-08-04 Todd County 0.0 100.0 100.00 0.0 0.0 0.0
520 2026-08-11 Todd County 0.0 100.0 99.06 0.0 0.0 0.0
521 2026-08-18 Todd County 0.0 100.0 98.97 0.0 0.0 0.0
522 2026-08-25 Todd County 0.0 100.0 66.20 0.0 0.0 0.0

Todd County Drought Summary Stats

None D0 D1 D2 D3 D4
count 523.000000 523.000000 523.000000 523.000000 523.000000 523.0
mean 43.186788 56.813212 29.544226 11.545315 2.528470 0.0
std 46.902388 46.902388 42.076676 29.324221 12.088991 0.0
min 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.0
25% 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.0
50% 0.000000 100.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.0
75% 100.000000 100.000000 75.520000 0.000000 0.000000 0.0
max 100.000000 100.000000 100.000000 100.000000 79.050000 0.0

Daily Precipitation Data Summary (South Dakota)

Number of daily precipitation records: 3653

date precipitation_inches
3648 2026-08-23 0.067627
3649 2026-08-24 0.075267
3650 2026-08-25 0.112057
3651 2026-08-26 0.000299
3652 2026-08-27 NaN

Precipitation Summary Stats

count    3652.000000
mean        0.059764
std         0.124284
min         0.000000
25%         0.000664
50%         0.008864
75%         0.056090
max         1.374540
Name: precipitation_inches, dtype: float64

Visualizations

Let’s visualize the trends over the 10-year period.

Code 
from rainDrought.visualizations import plot_matplotlib_trends
plot_matplotlib_trends(config)