Some areas will be worse affected by the drought than others. Howling Wilderness says as much. Also, coastal communities will have more food options than inland communities. Once again it will come down to whether available food can be moved far enough and safely enough to where it is needed.
If we stick to things as described in HW the 2001 spring/summer/autumn harvests in the CONUS will largely be a write-off (compared to pre-war crop yields). Winter precipitation at the end of 2001 may offer a glimmer of hope for the following growing season but in the colder lattitudes it won't be much consolation.
Bear in mind, in the real world the US is a huge net exporter of food. Crop yields late in the Twilight War will be hit by a lack of manufactured fertilisers, a lack of fuel for farmn machinery and then the drought but we've never crunched the numbers to determine at what point crop yields fall to below subsistance levels. And a drought doesn't automatically mean that the entire CONUS turns into a giant, parched dustbowl. It means sustained, reduced average precipitation.
Like it or not, enough people DID survive in the CONUS (according to GDW's writers) to allow the USA to once again become a major world power. As usual I choose to find ways for that to have happened rather than throw out HW altogether. My respected fellow forumites are of course entitled to do with HW as they see fit
