Drought is one of the most adverse and powerful weather-related disasters that occur every year across a portion of the United States. The consequences of droughts quite often can be devastating. To mitigate these consequences, droughts require careful monitoring. Recently, NOAA's National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service developed a new Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer-based vegetation condition index (VCI) that showed good results when it was used for drought detection and tracking. The VCI is a vegetation index with reduced noise and is adjusted for land climate, ecology, and weather conditions. This index provides a quantitative estimate of weather impact on vegetation and also measures vegetation conditions. Several large-area experiments showed that the VCI had excellent ability to detect drought and to measure the time of its onset and its intensity, duration, and impact on vegetation. The VCI provides accurate drought information not only for the cases with wel... Abstract Drought is one of the most adverse and powerful weather-related disasters that occur every year across a portion of the United States. The consequences of droughts quite often can be devastating. To mitigate these consequences, droughts require careful monitoring. Recently, NOAA's National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service developed a new Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer-based vegetation condition index (VCI) that showed good results when it was used for drought detection and tracking. The VCI is a vegetation index with reduced noise and is adjusted for land climate, ecology, and weather conditions. This index provides a quantitative estimate of weather impact on vegetation and also measures vegetation conditions. Several large-area experiments showed that the VCI had excellent ability to detect drought and to measure the time of its onset and its intensity, duration, and impact on vegetation. The VCI provides accurate drought information not only for the cases with wel...