Long-term climate indices (SPEI and scPDSI) derived from monthly meteorology data collected at USHCN stations in the northern Chihuahuan Desert of the United States, 1911-2021

Drought indices — Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and the self-calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index (scPDSI) —where derived from 9 United States Historical Climate Network (USHCN) stations on the Chihuahuan Desert in North America for this dataset. USHCN is a subset of the NOAA Cooperative Observer Program (COOP) Network, which consists of selected sites based on spatial coverages and completeness of data. Monthly precipitation depths, minimum, maximum and mean temperature were pulled from the dataset. These drought indices were derived using the SPEI package and scPDSI packages in R. Potential evapotranspiration was also calculated in R using the Thornthwaite method. All 9 sites are within the bounds of the Chihuahuan Desert in the state of New Mexico, with a single site (EL PASO) in the state of Texas.