Friday, April 01, 2011

Broader View Of Current Drought Conditions


Yesterday I was moaning about how dry it has been here in Tucson. However, BC reported from southwest Texas regarding drought conditions there.
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Midland has received 0.11" of precip since 10/1/10, making it the driest six-month period since record keeping began in 1931. Average should be around 4.5"! Both Big Bend and the Davis Mountains are the driest I've ever seen them; when I was driving through the mountains last weekend I could see stress on the prickly pears. Live oaks and junipers are also showing severe drought stress. Water rationing will begin tomorrow for both Midland and Odessa (first time ever). Going from a warm to a cold ENSO overnight really has changed the vegetative character of the Wasteland. This link might show you how bad things are, by climate division:

http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/spiFmap.pl?per05
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So, conditions are much worse to the east of here. The current US map from the Drought Monitor (above) shows that the current drought is most extreme from Arizona eastward across the Southern Plains. Very dry conditions also continue in the far Southeast. Unfortunately, here in southeast Arizona we're now into our three driest months - April through June (below).

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