Drought

  • The latest Drought Monitor came out today and shows that a large area of northeast Georgia plus a sliver of adjoining South Carolina is now classified as D1, moderate drought.  Small areas in western Virginia also received a D1 classification this week.  The drought declaration was not surprising considering the lack of rainfall in recent…

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  • Dry conditions have hit parts of Georgia and Florida this year as El Niño rains have bypassed those areas to fall in other regions.  The Panhandle Ag e-News from the University of Florida published an article this week discussing some of the impacts of the dry conditions and heat on vegetables. In particular, Josh Freeman,…

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  • Another dry week

    The latest 7-day QPF map shows that the next week should be mostly dry across the Southeast.  What little rain does come will hold off until the second half of the week but is not expected to be much.  This means that next week’s Drought Monitor is likely to show an expansion of abnormally dry…

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  • The latest Drought Monitor, released this morning, shows that while dry conditions have remained stable in Florida and Georgia, they have expanded in North Carolina and Virginia, going from 19% coverage over the Southeast to almost 35% coverage.  The cause has been the dome of high pressure parked over the Southeast, which prevents rain from…

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  • “Restorative grazing” is the idea that by appropriate use of grazing on dry grasslands, you can build up organic matter and improve the land to increase the health of the plants there, even during droughts.  In this article from the Food and Environment Reporting Network, a 7-year study of a desertified landscape in Zimbabwe looked…

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  • Continuing our look at droughts around the globe, NASA posted a story last month about the drought in the eastern Mediterranean based on some recent research that was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.  The research showed that based on climate data and tree ring analysis from the region, which includes Israel, Syria,…

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  • A number of news stories in recent weeks have shown the influence of the waning strong El Niño on climate around the world.  Here is a sampling of stories on the agricultural impacts of droughts in some of these areas. News24 reported that drought in Zimbabwe has caused the deaths of at least 19,300 head…

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