A journal article released today in Science Advances shows that when springlike temperatures occur earlier in the year, plants green up earlier and draw more moisture out of the soil, changing the water balance by increasing evapotranspiration and drying out the soil earlier in the growing season. It could also amplify summer droughts by reducing the amount of water available to plants later in the growing season.
This is something that we need to watch in the Southeast as recent years have seen an earlier start to spring following warm winters. The graph below shows the change in February through April temperatures across the Southeast from 1895 to 2019 and definitely show an increase in average temperature from the 1970s to the present. Could the earlier onset of spring be making us more vulnerable to droughts during summer and fall? Something to watch for next spring, although there is certainly plenty of soil moisture today. You can read the journal article here.
