Extreme drought covers a third of Puerto Rico, according to the Monitor

On August 20, 2026, The San Juan Daily Star reports that extreme drought conditions now cover 33.31 percent of Puerto Rico, according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor update. The figure, the staff writes, represents almost double the coverage of a week earlier. The expansion is more pronounced in the east, south, and southwest, where streamflows remain low and some communities remain under rationing. It is not the August 6 map, when El Nuevo Día covered D3 in portions of the south. Nor is it the 13th's, when the same newspaper spoke of almost a fifth. This is the reading of the 20th, with a new URL.

Wholly under extreme drought, according to the Star, are Vieques, Culebra, Guánica, Santa Isabel, Humacao, Las Piedras, Juncos, Naguabo, Ceiba, Gurabo, Fajardo, and Luquillo. Twelve municipalities. A thirteenth is not added. As an example of the threat to supplies, the Fajardo reservoir level dropped 0.12 meters on Tuesday to 47.01, a little more than three meters from the operational-adjustments phase, House speaker and District 36 representative Carlos Méndez Núñez said Wednesday. That reading is the same one Walo Radio dated the 19th. The Star reuses it on the 20th. The coincidence is named. A second drop is not invented.

Meteorologists and emergency planners, according to the outlet, warn that the lack of rain threatens drinking water and agricultural production. The National Weather Service kept heat advisories in parts of the island, and forecasters were watching an Atlantic tropical disturbance that could bring rain later in the week. For now, authorities keep asking people to conserve water. The Star does not publish a millimeter count or a yes or no on new rationing for those twelve municipalities.

On August 24, NotiCel covers San Juan National Weather Service director Ernesto Rodríguez saying the next map could bring D3 close to 40 percent, and that this drought exceeds 2015 in D2 and D3 coverage, not in duration. That is another date. On August 6, El Nuevo Día had already put July as the driest in San Juan in the series. They are not flattened. The 20th leaves the 33.31 and the twelve names.

A third in D3 does not authorize rewriting the early-month Drought Monitor kernel here. It is a later map, with its own URL. A reader who wants the Monitor shapefile has the Star URL at the foot. This is not original reporting.

Source: San Juan Daily Star. https://www.sanjuandailystar.com/post/extreme-drought-now-covers-one-third-of-puerto-rico