Drought

  • This week’s Drought Monitor shows a slight expansion of abnormally dry conditions across the Southeast. Increases occurred in Alabama and North and South Carolina due to warm temperatures and lack of rain. No dry conditions are currently observed in Virginia, Georgia and Florida. The next seven days show relatively little rain for the abnormally dry…

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  • The latest Drought Monitor, released this morning, shows that rain has reduced the scattered spots of abnormally dry conditions in eastern Alabama, although there was a slight expansion of abnormally dry conditions in the northwest part of that state. Elsewhere, small spots of dry conditions persist. No drought is expected to develop over the next…

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  • Here is an interesting story by Eddie McGriff from the Southeast Farm Press about the impacts of a layer of hardpan below the surface of an Alabama cotton field on plant growth. One of the most interesting impacts to me as a climatologist was the impact of breaking up the hardpan on floods and droughts.…

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  • Drovers’ Newsletter posted a story about the impacts of droughts around the world in recent weeks on cattle production. Farmers are handling the water shortages differently in different places. For example, in Switzerland they are bringing in water by helicopter to deal with the worst drought since 1921. In other places farmers are culling cattle…

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  • The latest Drought Monitor, released this morning, shows that abnormally dry conditions have slightly expanded in Alabama this week. Alabama has missed a lot of the rain that other parts of the Southeast have experienced in the past month, leading to the drier conditions. The rest of the Southeast is unchanged from last week. Wet…

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  • While here in the Southeast we’ve had plenty of rain this year, out west is a different story. The drought in Texas and the Southwest has caused a lot of problems for livestock producers, including water supplies drying up and lack of food. You can read more about the impacts of the drought in Drovers’…

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  • The rain we received over much of the Southeast in the last week has substantially reduced the area of abnormally dry conditions, as expected. Only a small area in the central Carolinas remains along with scattered spots in Alabama. The rest of the Southeast is free of any dry conditions.

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