ADVANCING DROUGHT UNDERSTANDING, MONITORING, AND PREDICTION

Three working groups (WG) were formed to address the major aspects of the testbed: 1) WG-Metrics, to define and apply metrics to evaluate advances in drought monitoring and prediction; 2) WG-Case Studies, to analyze drought cases by integrating all aspects of drought research; and 3) WG-Experimental System, to incorporate research advances in an exper- imental drought monitoring and prediction system and assess improvements. To date, the Drought Task Force has proposed a Journal of Hydrometeorology special collection entitled "Advances in Drought Monitoring and Prediction" that will include research papers from individual task force members as well as a number of collective papers.\n The planned "narrative" activities will occur twice a year and focus on the analysis of recent past droughts and provide a venue to discuss research results regarding manifestations and scientific explanations of the droughts.