From the blog at Nebraska's Drone Journalism Lab:

"Nebraska is seeing a drought worse than the Dust Bowl drought of the Great Depression. The least amount of rain fell on the state this summer since records were kept in 1895. From the ground, dead lawns and distressed trees show the drought up close. But the view from an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle nearly 400 feet off the ground provides a perspective on just how wide spread the drought’s impacts really are."

Matt Waite, who has an account on DIYD,  and his students at the Drone Journalism Lab have been working hard all semester, and this is a great first example of a journalism investigation using drones. They also back up their reporting with climate data, which adds some excellent context.