Drought identification and characterization in Jordan

A comparison between identified droughts was carried out through local and regional analysis. Comprehensive analyses of data for stationarity and randomness have been carried out with three tests, Student's t -test, Kendall's τ test and Turning point test. The calendar year, water year, and trimester time-scales were considered. For each series four different thresholds were used, mean, median, mean minus standard deviation and 35% quantile. The numbers of the drought periods, for the calendar series, are almost the same locally. Different periods and percentages are noticed with water year series, and with no consistency in results. Trimester series are with more drought periods and longer. The last decade has been characterized by more frequent and longer droughts in Jordan.