Drought in the contiguous United States has reached record levels for this time of year, weather data shows. Meteorologists said it's a bad sign for the upcoming wildfire season, food prices and western water issues.

More than 61% of the Lower 48 states is in moderate to exceptional drought, including 97% of the Southeast and two-thirds of the West, according to the US Drought Monitor. It's the highest levels for this time of year since the drought monitor began in 2000.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's comprehensive Palmer Drought Severity Index not only hit its highest level for March since records started in 1895, but last month was the third-driest month recorded regardless of time of year. It trailed only the famed Dust Bowl months of July and August 1934.

Because of record heat, much of the West has had exceptionally low levels of snow in the first few months of the year, which is usually how the region stores water for the summer. A different drought – connected to the jet stream keeping storms further north – has put the South from Texas all the way to the East Coast into a separate drought that just happens to coincide with what's going on in the West, said a climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center.

It would take about 480 mm of rain in one month to break the drought in eastern Texas and more than a foot of rain to solve the deficit for most of the Southeast, NOAA calculated.

Sticking out like a sore thumb is a highly technical but crucial measurement of "the sponginess'' of the atmosphere – or how much moisture the hot, dry air is sucking up from the land it's baking. It's called vapor pressure deficit. It's 77% above normal and more than 25% higher than the previous record for January through March in the West, said a hydroclimatologist at UCLA.

Drought usually peaks in summer, not spring, and that's what worries meteorologists.

In Arizona, cacti are blooming months early and the worry about water has already started.

One of the biggest concerns of the meteorologists is what drought will do to agriculture and then food prices. If America has a poor crop year because of the drought, it could be a global problem. A strong natural El Nino weather oscillation is predicted, which often reduces crop yield in other places across the globe, such as India.