California’s Mediterranean climate is expected to continue experiencing climate whiplash, going from periods of extreme wet to extreme dry with increasing frequency. The extreme dry periods vary across time and space, making the management of diverse habitats and species assemblages during and after drought periods challenging. Identifying quantitative and reproducible approaches to prioritizing which species may be most vulnerable, and which habitats or localities may be most at risk to both short and long-term drought remains a significant management hurdle. We piloted an effort to quantify the risk to sensitive species and habitats at scale by combining newly developed drought products, such as the Evaporative Demand Drought Index (EDDI), with occupancy records for species of conservation concern, generation time estimates, and range sizes. EDDI provides a measure of how anomalous the atmospheric evaporative demand (E0; also known as "the thirst of the atmosphere") is for a given location and time interval. When combined with species generation time and range size, it enables us to identify where drought exposure is greatest for the species, both in the near- and long-term, and in turn, facilitates science-based prioritization of management and monitoring efforts.