From the University of Nebraska-Lincoln , a new record in the 12 year old drought monitor.
US sets drought monitor’s ‘exceptional drought’ record in July
Worst classification for drought in nearly 12 percent of contiguous US
The percent of contiguous U.S. land area experiencing exceptional drought in July reached the highest levels in the history of the U.S. Drought Monitor, an official at the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln said.
Nearly 12 percent of the contiguous United States fell into the “exceptional” classification during the month, peaking at 11.96 percent on July 12. That level of exceptional drought had never before been seen in the monitor’s 12-year history, said Brian Fuchs, UNL assistant geoscientist and climatologist at the NDMC.
The monitor uses a ranking system that begins at D0 (abnormal dryness) and moves through D1 (moderate drought), D2 (severe drought), D3 (extreme drought) and D4 (exceptional drought).
Exceptional drought’s impacts include widespread crop and pasture losses, as well as shortages of water in reservoirs, streams and wells, creating water emergencies.
Currently, 18 percent of the country is classified as under either extreme or exceptional drought, Fuchs said. Much of it is in the south, particularly Texas, where the entire state is experiencing drought — three-fourths considered exceptional.
The most recent drought monitor report, released late last week, indicated that 59 percent of the United States was drought-free, while 41 percent faced some form of abnormal dryness or drought. Two weeks ago, 64 percent of the country was drought-free.
Other states that are at least 85 percent abnormally dry or in drought according to the report include:
- New Mexico (100 percent in drought, 48 percent exceptional)
- Louisiana (100 percent abnormally dry or in drought, 33 percent exceptional)
- Oklahoma (100 percent abnormally dry or in drought, 52 percent exceptional)
- South Carolina (97 percent abnormally dry or in drought, 16 percent extreme to exceptional)
- Georgia (95 percent abnormally dry or in drought, 68 percent extreme to exceptional)
- Arkansas (96 percent abnormally dry or in drought, 6 percent extreme to exceptional)
- Florida (89 percent abnormally dry or in drought, 20 percent extreme to exceptional)
In the next two to three weeks, some affected areas may see some improvement. The wake of Tropical Storm Don should result in rainfall in the central and western Gulf Coast states, but the degree of drought relief will depend upon the storm’s intensity, as well as its track and speed.
“Whenever there is a lot of moisture in a short period of time, the potential exists for rapid improvement,” Fuchs said. “But while that possibility exists, it won’t necessarily mean the end of drought in those areas. It will likely only improve by one drought category for those areas not impacted by any tropical storms or where drought related impacts improve.”
The drought monitor combines numeric measures of drought and experts’ best judgment into a weekly map. It is produced by the NDMC, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and incorporates review from 300 climatologists, extension agents and others across the nation.
Each week the previous map is revised based on rain, snow and other events, observers’ reports of how drought is affecting crops, wildlife and other indicators.
To examine current and archived national, regional and state-by-state drought maps and conditions, go to http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu.
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Smokey, more perfect than perfect can be! Bet a cold beer they don’t get it. Their genes are missing some links.
LA Guy,
I agree, the precipitous change from ~208,000ppm O2 down to a nearly suffocatingly fatal ~208,000ppm O2 is the difference between life and death. At ~208,000ppm O2, women weren’t allowed to vote. Now that we’ve dropped to ~208,000ppm O2 we allow blacks, women, and even dead people to vote. In 1899, under the old ~208,000ppm O2, the number of highway fatalities was less than 30. Now that we’ve lost almost 0,000ppm of O2 in the atmosphere, more than 40,000 people die in automobile accidents every year. I doubt that all of these changes could be pure coincidence.
@Smokey,
And, in your graph, remember that just a few years ago, those 1940’s temps were hotter than that peak 1998 temp. How soon we forget.
Well, if this is due to human climate change then all those hurricanes also caused by that should clear it right up.
@Myron Mesecke
Are we supposed to be impressed by a whole 12 years?
I’m sure the team scientists can come up with all kinds of paleo contrivances that show you whatever trend you would like over whatever timescale you would like. All you have to do is wave millions in grant money in front of their faces.
LA Guy says:
August 1, 2011 at 6:59 pm
So how long before you guys start acknowledging that this could be related to how we’re changing the make up of the earth’s atmosphere?
==================================================
I couldn’t agree more. Now move out from LA right away – its a natural desert and you’re diverting water and power there in a very non sustainable way. And you have a huge deficit. Very bad.
I feel better already.
12 whole years!!!
The trends of both D2-D3 and D2-D4 drought conditions are negative over the whole 12-yr record too… “A and not A” once again proves CAGW.
LA, until it does something that hasn’t happened already in the past, or it happens at a frequency that is new….there isnt anything unique about this years drought problems other than its higher than average. One year does NOT make a trend.
On that side note, its been a sucky summer here in NW Arkansas, still not close to breaking consecutive 100+ straight days…but its been a crappy summer for the kids…cant go anywhere outside without at least a couple bottles of water along for the ride. Im not old enough to have witnessed the old records for high temps around these parts…but tomorrows high of 112 here will be the hottest ive ever had to deal with personally. The record as far as I know is 113 for tomorrow. So it will be close…
Strangely this Feb we broke the record cold temp at -18…so a record high would even things out lol. Oh yea, we also got 30 inches of snow in one night….they forecast for 3-4…so yes..its been a weird year…. I can understand why LA would think its Global warming..but until this happens often….you cant conclusively say anything about it…other than….hella weird.
Well, you know, there’s a drought and it’s pretty bad, but dang — the worst in TWELVE Years? Goodness gracious! Heck, I’ve got underwear that old. 🙂
Anthony,
Excellent sarcasm, btw.
A drought in SE Louisiana? It’s been raining for weeks.
http://weather.yahoo.com/united-states/louisiana/new-orleans-2458833/?unit=f
Ah – so then by your own words anyone that says “but it is cold this month” or “we got a lot of snow” or “the rise in ocean / surface temperature didn’t got up in a straight line each and every year” will all quickly be dismissed then?
When you guys can explain where the Anasazi indians got all the SUV’s that resulted in the drought that lasted from about 1118 – 1180 AD and then the drought that lasted from 1270-1274 and then a 14 year long drought from 1275 until 1290 which caused the chaco canyon culture to collapse.
Drought is very common in the southwest and there are many recorded drought episodes that have lasted for many years and even decades.
In short a 12 year history it absolutely meaningless. Let them collect this data for 50 -100 years then a “worst ever recorded” event would be at least worth noticing. After 200-500 years of records then it would be worth getting concerned about.
You might try reading a little history of the American Southwest.
Larry
New record usage of electricity in the ERCOT-controlled area of Texas today (2011-08-01) too owing to the heat and ever-browner and parched landscape:
66,945 MW at 16:40 CDT by my observation.
Previous record was last year August 23rd 2010 at 65,776 MW.
The number cited in the article below (66,867 MW) is lower than the number I observed from the ERCOT near real-time website (which has a 5 minute reporting bin/update cycle).
http://www.ercot.com/news/press_releases/show/407
.
This deserves a thread of its own.
it’s been raining for months almost every day in florida.
no freakin drought here.
Chris says:
“Strangely this Feb we broke the record cold temp at -18…so a record high would even things out lol. ”
so it’s just average temps there? aren’t statistics fun!
heh. that’s why i’m so impressed by a ‘global temperature average’. so meaningful.
🙂
Worst drought in 12 years… This actually makes me laugh. I can see it already. Next year it will be a drought (somewhere) that is in the top 10 since measurements began (13 years at that point). And then the next year we will have (somewhere) the 2nd worst drought since measurements began… and so on. Just like the ice measurements which extend a whole 30+ years – except with drought measurements you can pick your spot, you are not limited to a non-cooperative location.
Is a science class no longer required to graduate highschool? (I mean this; I am not being sarcastic – I don’t understand how people have so little understanding of data collection or statistics)
We had a bad case of drought in California in 1976-77, and some have never quite gotten over the complex it gave them. So what happened in 1978? Big rains filled up the reservoirs in 6 months.
If one is to look deeper into dry & wet cycles, the Palmer maps going back a 100 years are the place.
The reality of 2011 for the US is that the major portion of the country had ample to way too much precipitation. Stands to reason that some areas had to get the short end of the rain guage.
La Nina, anyone?
LA Guy, volcanoes change the makeup of the atmosphere much more. But we are absolutely not supposed to understand that, those charlatans with the big agenda want us all to suffer debt collapses believing their bullcrap.
Yes, we may have a dust bowl in our future. But just like the last one it will be the result of the change of the makeup of the atmosphere from the volcanoes, not anything else. We are pretty much at 1930’s levels again. It’s been slowly getting there since 1995. Understood? Brian, you got a copy? Like talking to a box of rocks…
Subtle indications (hottest ever temperatures recorded in X) repeated in the main stream media (and other places: Discovery Channel’s latest “Shark Week” programming mentioned global warming as a reason for something or other) serve to reinforce the meme.
And a meme is hard to kill.
If a person lives in a desert and the weather most often is what one would expect for a desert, is that a drought or does that person perhaps not know what “desert Southwest” means? I think it is remarkable the Anasazi figured it out long ago and moved away from there.
The scoring in the observation vs models contest:
Advantage observation.
Anyone care to guess the acreage of rain forest within 1000 miles of H[o]uston?
LA Guy says:
August 1, 2011 at 6:59 pm
I don’t think the people here will. It’s too bad though, as the trend for the data 2000-present indicates that CO2 must be decreasing drought. Trends (%/week) as follows:
No drought: +0.019%/week
D0-D4: -0.019%/week
D1-D4: -0.025%/week
D2-D4: -0.020%/week
D3-D4: -0.009%/week
D4: 0.000%/week
So I guess we should all hope you’re right because increasing CO2 corresponds to decreasing drought using the longest-term trends that one can get with this data set (actually I need to dig up the archived 1999 data that wasn’t available in the table I got this data from). One cherry-picked drought in 2011 isn’t enough to change the trend from the rest of the data. Still though, I think you’re wrong and the CO2 has had an insignificant effect on drought.
-Scott
Its o.k. LA guy just hopes that his “evidence” will get your government to bring in a carbon tax to intimidate the weather cycle, stop droughts, floods, snow, heat, cold dead in its tracks, course it will cost multi Trillions of dollars that you don’t have. Whatever, its so urgent that you bankrupt yourselves to appease Gaia or whatever he worships this month, next month he will be advocating something quite different.
Sorry LA guy fat hope that will happen as Australia’s economy gets set to implode, one demonstrative fool is enough to wake up the rest of the world that the problem really only exists in your mind. The truly sad part is so much was wasted and so little will be achieved.
Teacher to weather – enough! sit in the corner until you do as I tell you – hint, try that on the ocean waves……….