Drought
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The latest Drought Monitor, released this morning, shows a continuation of the improvement in drought conditions that we saw last week as we transitioned away from the flash drought towards more rainy conditions. While there are still pockets of extreme drought in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, they are smaller. Parts of central Georgia are…
Posted in: Drought -
The rain from a slow-moving warm front, coupled with the rain from TS Nestor last weekend, has significantly knocked back the drought that has been expanding across the region. There are still a number of pockets of severe (D3) drought scattered across the area, but there have been significant reductions in many places too. In…
Posted in: Drought -
Because of the drought that has been affecting the Southeast, including most of Georgia, the Georgia Environmental Protection Division declared a Level 1 drought response for 103 counties in the state. A Level 1 Drought Response does not require specific watering restrictions beyond what is normally in place but requires that water utilities will circulate…
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NOAA released their latest monthly and 3-month outlooks for the climate earlier this week. They show a continued trend towards warmer than normal temperatures for both November and the November through January periods across the region. This is based on long-term temperature trends towards warmer temperatures since the 1960’s, although there is still a lot…
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The latest Drought Monitor, released this morning, shows an expansion of all categories of drought in every Southeastern state during the last week. It is important to keep in mind that the cutoff for data for this map was Tuesday morning, before most of the rain fell in southern and central Georgia and surrounding areas,…
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The recording of last Thursday’s (October 10) webinar on the flash drought and its impacts on agriculture is now available. Please go to https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/3862877220399463692 and register, then the recording should appear. Thanks to those who attended or sent me information! Hopefully the rain this week will stop the progression of drought and provide some relief.
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The use of satellites to monitor climate conditions provides some really good fine-scale detail about how conditions like soil moisture are changing over time. The NASA GRACE tool provides a look at soil moisture depletion in several different zones, including the root zone. This map from last week shows how dry the root zone is…