To explore the dynamic patterns and influencing factors of the propagation from meteorological drought to agricultural drought in different climatic regions, the Xiangjiang River Basin, the upper Huaihe River Basin above Wangjiaba Station, and the upper Weihe River Basin above Huaxian Station were selected as research areas, and the standardized precipitation index(SPI) and standardized soil moisture index (SSMI) were selected to characterize meteorological drought and agricultural drought, respectively. A 10a sliding window and correlation analysis method were employed to obtain drought propagation time series. The MannKendall trend test was used to analyze the variation trends in propagation time, and the extreme gradient boosting algorithm was utilized to identify the dominate influencing factors affecting the spatiotemporal variations in drought propagation time. The results indicate that the Xiangjiang River Basin has the shortest propagation time (6.4 tenday period), whereas the average propagation time in the upper Weihe River Basin above Huaxian Station is the longest (33.1 tenday period). The upper Huaihe River Basin above Wangjiaba Station has the highest proportion of grids with significant variations in drought propagation time. The coupling relationship between soil moisture and temperature, mean annual temperature, and soil moisture memory are identified as the top three influencing factors affecting dynamic changes in propagation time at the grid scale in the Xiangjiang River Basin, the upper Huaihe River Basin above Wangjiaba Station, and the upper Weihe River Basin above Huaxian Station, with average relative importance of 0.20, 0.21, and 0.21, respectively. The spatial distribution characteristics of drought propagation time in the Xiangjiang River Basin are more susceptible to changes in the environment. The soil moisture memory is the most important factor affecting the spatial variation in propagation time of the three basins.