THE US Drought Thread (merged)

Heineken · Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 9:45 pm Post subject: THE US Drought Thread (merged)

Hurricane Katrina dumped a load on the Gulf Coast, but here in the East we're drying up. I think Katrina, in its trek north with enormous energy, disrupted the weather pattern here. No real rain in central Virginia for the past three weeks, and the long-range forecasts are looking awful (unless you're a lizard)---highs in the upper 80s and low 90s with not a spit of rain as far out as they can see. The air is dry as an old teat, and even a cloud is a scarce sight. I've about given up on my fall garden, which I'd just finished planting around the Katrina weekend. Watering is futile---a few hours later, the ground is dusty again under that relentless sun. Anyone else from the East have any weather thoughts? This budding drought comes on the heels of the hottest summer in history in this locale.
_________________
"Actually, humans died out long ago."
---Abused, abandoned hunting dog

"Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse."
---Me and my brother

rogerhb

When people talk about the Great Depression they often talk of Okies and the Dust Bowl? Is this related?

eric_b

Yes its been very dry up in my neck of the woods too (madison, wi). A lot of the midwest
is in near drought conditions if not outright drought. Chicagoland area's been very dry too.
Lots of brown grass and vegetation.

Heineken

ericb: I was under the false impression that the Midwest drought was somewhat relieved by Katrina. I guess it missed you entirely and brought rain only to the eastern Ohio valley and points north. Sorry to hear it's still going on for you.

Oh well, at least the nights are now cool here, gratis of unbelievably low humidity levels (just like in the desert).

Given how abnormal the weather is becoming, I have a very uneasy feeling about this fall---I live in the middle of a forest; if it burns, I do.

Heineken

frankthetank

We've been catching a shower here and there the past few weeks, over in W Wi/E MN... Around a week ago we recieved over 3inches out of one storm.

heres the map

for the past 30 days.

cynthia · Heavy Crude Joined: May 29, 2005 Posts: 348

This might be a labor intensive idea but to minimize evaporation could you chop some of the brown vegetation and layer it with newspapers around the plants? Is there anything around to compensate for the overly dry conditions? Drip irrigation? Are there prevailing winds adding to the dryness? Think windbreak. Plastic mulch will fry the seedlings. Goodness! Hang in there.

In the Willamette Valley Oregon we have to water pretty much all summer because we don't have much rain between the end of June and October. Although, there have been variations on that pattern and who knows what is coming down the pike...

basil_hayden

Enjoy the dry weather while you can! In New England we have a saying: Don't like the weather? Wait 5 minutes....

It's been quite dry for several weeks in CT also, unusual considering the saying above. Hasn't effected the water table much, plenty of water underground to pump onto mulched gardens. The dry weather has cut mosquito production greatly.

It'll probably start raining like crazy after all the leaves are off the trees and I'm trying to prep firewood.....par for the course.

rogerhb

Down here we claim "Four seasons in one day"

Pops

Just about every county in southern Mo is in a drought emergency due to a warm/wet winter and hot/dry spring and summer, we had the 3rd driest spring on record – the 2 drier years were during the dustbowl. The map above doesn’t really reflect that.

The jet stream shows a high ridge over the mid-west that will probably stay in place for a couple more weeks – the only thing keeping corn and soybean prices low is last year’s surplus and the Port of NO being damaged.

The other thing I heard was the current jet stream location is a bad sign hurricane wise – perhaps our resident meteorologists could confirm that?
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gnm

Funny how it can be so bad in an area not used to drought when theres a drop in rainfall - I know Seattle just starts wilting and dying with even a few missed rains. Here we have actually gone 7 months without any precip ( that was in '96 I believe ). Since the vegetation (such as it is) is used to periodic droughts we only really start to get problematic after a couple years with say less than 9 inches annual.

-G
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All right, you primitive screw-heads, listen up!

Heineken

Heineken

Chaparral

Being in an area that only averages around 12 to 15 inches per year I've been planning on capturing any rain that falls on my roofs (1200 square feet from 2 buildings) and trying to somehow recycle my gray water for the plants. I'd like to contour my driveway to shunt runoff to the sides where it will percolate through the yard to a line of pine trees at the street.

Has anyone east of the Misssissippi considered rain-water capture in cisterns or is drought simply too rare of an occurrence to justify the expense?

How about GW? Do you guys in the midwest, south and southeast think GW is increasing the variability in year to year precipitation?

Heineken

Chaparral, I've considered putting in either a separate well with a hand pump or adding a hand pump to our electric-powered well (although I don't know much about it, the latter is apparently possible, according to at least one Internet source I've consulted). I haven't thought much about a cistern, since we get (or are supposed to get) about 44 inches annually here in central VA. Some excellent hand pumps are now available that can lift water as much as 300 feet, according to manufacturers' claims.

I do think that our precipitation is much more variable in recent years. We had an extraordinary drought in 2001-2002 that was actually causing wells to go dry in the region---a first in many people's memory. Then 2003 and 2004 were exceptionally wet, with over 60 inches each year, also highly unusual for us. 2005 has been persistently dry---but not droughty until now.

Whether GW or natural variability is responsible for such peaks and valleys remains to be proven, but I'd put my money on GW. We've pretty much destroyed the rest of what's "natural" about this planet, so why not also the climate?
_________________
"Actually, humans died out long ago."
---Abused, abandoned hunting dog

"Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse."
---Me and my brother