Drought
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CNBC posted a story about the upcoming winter and the prospects for rain in California. After three winters with little rainfall, most of the state is in exceptional drought. Farmers and communities have been able to use groundwater to some extent to make up for the missing rainfall, but groundwater levels are now dropping rapidly…
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Meteorologists often hear folks say that they are the only people that get paid whether or not they are right. In reality, weather forecasts have improved immensely over the years and a five-day forecast now is as accurate as the two-day forecasts were a couple of decades ago. This is due to improvements in computers,…
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We often talk about negative impacts of drought, but for some people it has positive impacts as well. For construction companies and golf courses, dry conditions mean more days to get work and play done, increasing income. In agriculture, a story this week in Growing Georgia highlights one benefit that the recent dry conditions have…
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Two stories this week discussed long-term drought issues in different parts of the world. Bloomberg reported that California and the rest of the West is watching this coming winter anxiously. Communities in the West depend on winter snowfall to provide them with up to 90 percent of their water for the summer dry season. The…
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An entry from the American Geophysical Union blog site in mid-August discusses the possibility of spreading antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ABR) through wind dispersal of land-applied animal wastewater used for irrigation in drought conditions. You can read the blog here. Scientists are not sure about the amount of ABR naturally occurring in the soils now, but speculate…
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Yesterday the South Carolina Drought Response Committee official declared nine counties covering the Edisto basin in incipient drought, the lowest of four levels. This is the first drought declaration in the state since April 2013. You can read more about this at TheState.com.