The study used a meteorological drought index based on precipitation to develop a drought monitoring method which can detect the deficiency of water supply for irrigation during droughts. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) widely used in USA was applied in this work for drought monitoring, and the stations with rainfall records for more than 40 years in South Taiwan were chosen for analysis. Meanwhile, information on historical drought events has been collected to verify the monitoring ability of the proposed method. Analytical results from historical drought events in 1980, 1988, and 2002, reveal that SPI can reasonably respond the drought condition. Two groups of drought and non-thought events were divided according to the values of SPI3 and SPI6 in October in Chianan Area, which may help to judge whether the drought event occurs during the first paddy crop of the corning year.