To assess the magnitude and the spatial extension of drought events, it is important to have a standardized drought index which is applicable for a large climatically heterogeneous region like Europe or the WMO RA VI Region (Europe and the Middle East). Such an index should describe the drought phenomenon adequately, but it should also be derivable from meteorological quantities which are easily and timely available in whole Europe. The widely known Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) is a standardized and handy measurement of drought for any location and requires nothing but precipitation data. However, it has turned out that for some places in the RA VI Region, notably in arid regions in summer, the SPI does not always provide reasonable or easily interpretable results. For that reason, a modification of the SPI has been developed at DWD (DWDSPI). It contains a so called zero correction, which sets very small precipitation totals to dry values, only dependent on the precipitation distribution, but independent on the individual location.