Abstract. Drought and heat extremes often occur simultaneously or sequentially within a short period, named compound dry and hot events (CDHEs), enhancing damages caused by individual drought or heat extremes. Under global warming, occurrences of short-term CDHEs have increased, adversely impacting the ecosystem and society. However, current indicators generally monitor CDHEs at monthly scales, which cannot reflect short-term CDHEs. This study proposes a novel daily-scale compound dry and hot index (DCDHI) by jointing daily Standardized Moisture Anomaly Index (SZI) and Standardized Temperature Index (STI) using Copula. The applicability of daily SZI and DCDHI indices in monitoring droughts and CDHEs is verified across non-arid regions of China. The daily SZI agrees better with soil moisture variations than the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and Standardized Precipitation and Temperature Index (SPEI) at multiple time scales, indicating it can be applied to construct daily DCDHI for detecting compound dry and hot events. The DCDHI can detect spatial evolutions of dry and hot conditions within a month and reflects vegetation losses, indicating the DCDHI is a good indicator for detecting compound CDHEs at different time scales (daily to monthly). The characteristics of CDHEs during growing seasons (April to October) are also investigated from 1961 to 2021. There is a significant increase in the area affected by CDHEs, which occur more frequently for the period of 1990–2021 than 1961–1989. The severity of compound dry and hot events decreases from the period 1961–1989 to 1990–2021 in northern regions but increases in southern especially southwestern regions. More extreme compound dry and hot events are more likely to occur under global warming. The new tool proposed in this study could detect evolutions and characteristics of short-term CDHEs and provide technical support for the risk management of extreme events.