Drought

  • Here’s an interesting story about how the Drought Monitor is made from KQED out west.  It describes the combination of quantitative factors along with the art that makes the map come together.  However, unlike the headline above, I know of a few examples where politics has also come into play, although for the most part…

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  • The latest Drought Monitor, released this morning, shows very minor changes to the drought status in the Southeast this week.  With near-normal rainfall expected in the next few days and few impacts being currently reported, next week’s DM is not expected to change much.

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  • Growing Georgia published a report by Tim Daly this week discussing the impacts of the recent drought on landscaping plants.  In spite of the recent rains, the drought caused a lot of damage to coniferous plants as well as other plants.  I know I have a dead pine in my yard this year that I…

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  • Drovers’ Newsletter posted a short article this morning on resources related to drought planning that are available for cattle grazers.  They include how to make a drought plan in advance of experiencing drought conditions and what to do once you are in a drought.  You can read it here.

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  • The State Climate Office of North Carolina noted this week that “the map on the front page of the NC Drought Management Advisory Council (DMAC) website, which serves as the official drought designation for North Carolina, is different than the weekly US Drought Monitor (USDM) map.”  This happens from time to time when the assessment…

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  • All categories of drought showed a slight expansion in the latest Drought Monitor map.  Particularly worrisome is the re-expansion of severe drought in northern Georgia and back into the western Carolinas.  Warm conditions and an early start to the growing season has taken moisture out of the soil and increased evaporation and evapotranspiration, which has…

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  • The WunderBlog has an excellent retrospective of the last several years of the drought in California and how the last very wet season has knocked out the drought in a lot of the state.  But they do note that even with all of the rain, it will take a long time for the aquifers to…

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