megadrought

plural megadroughts

1. climatologyA drought lasting for decades or centuries.

   Severe water cuts were announced on Tuesday to western states in the grip of a severe “megadrought” that has dropped levels in the country’s largest two reservoirs to record lows.

   2022 August 16, Richard Luscombe, “Drastic water cuts imposed as ‘megadrought’ grips western US states”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 16 Aug 2022

   2 more examples

   The most severe droughts also tend to be the most widespread and prolonged, but fortunately these megadroughts are far less frequent than the lesser droughts which are vastly in the majority […]

   2000, Joan Whitmore, Drought Management on Farmland, →ISBN, page 8

   But those newcomers need water — water that is vanishing as a megadrought dries up reservoirs and rivers across the West. […] It is one of the first towns in the United States to purposely stall growth for want of water in a new era of megadroughts. But it could be a harbinger of things to come in a hotter, drier West.

   2021 July 20, Jack Healy, Sophie Kasakove, “A Drought So Dire That a Utah Town Pulled the Plug on Growth”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 31 Jul 2021