New research suggests that “flash droughts” – like the one that unexpectedly gripped the Southern Rockies and Midwest in the summer of 2012 – could be predicted months in advance using soil moisture and snowpack data.

Researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) analyzed the conditions leading up to the 2012 drought, which ultimately caused $30 billion in economic losses, looking for any warning signs that a drought was on the way.