Climatologists at Colorado State University are confirming what many Coloradans already suspect — almost the entire state is consumed by drought. About 98 percent of the state is experiencing varying levels of drought, according to CSU, with the most severe in the Arkansas Basin, where drought ranges from D1, or “moderate” drought to D3, or [...]
Tag Archives: drought
Texas drought cost $7.6 billion
Texas agriculture producers lost $7.62 billion to the state’s 2011 drought, which experts said makes it the costliest drought in the state’s history and possibly the most expensive drought ever suffered by any state. “No one alive has seen single-year drought damage to this extent,” said Travis Miller, an agricultural economist at Texas A&M University. [...]
Texas Rice Farmers Lose Their Water
The state’s persistent drought [in Texas] has claimed its latest victims: rice farmers. Because of low water levels in several lakes that serve as reservoirs here, officials said Friday that they wouldn’t release irrigation water to farmers in three counties downstream that produce much of the rice in the state. The rice industry contributes about [...]
Texans now trucking water in bone-dry state
Under dark clouds and rain, two tanker trucks for the first time delivered thousands of gallons of water Monday to a Texas town that came precariously close to becoming the state’s first community to run out of water during a historic drought. The 8,000-gallon water delivery arrived in Spicewood after it became clear the village’s [...]
2011 a record year for wet/dry extremes in the U.S.
The combined percent area of the country experiencing either extremely-wet or extremely-dry conditions during 2011 was record high at 58 percent.
Lowest early January snow levels ever in Sierra Nevada
As 2012 begins a possible drought is looming over California and, again, the Southwest. Snow depth in the Sierra Nevada is at its lowest on record for this time of year early January and no precipitation is in sight for the next two weeks.
Climate change fingered for Mediterranean droughts
Wintertime droughts are increasingly common in the Mediterranean region, and human-caused climate change is partly responsible, according to a new analysis by NOAA scientists and colleagues at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). In the last 20 years, 10 of the driest 12 winters have taken place in the lands surrounding the [...]
Both drought and extreme rains hit U.S. in July
More of the United States was in exceptional drought in July 2011 than in any other month in the past 12 years, according to the National Climatic Data Center. The worst of the drought is spread across Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and parts of Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, and Louisiana. But 26 percent of the lower [...]
Record drought drying out Texas, fueling record wildfires
March 2011 was the driest on record for the state of Texas. Parts of west Texas received no measurable rainfall during the month and less than an inch of precipitation over the past six months. The whole state settled into drought, with extreme to exceptional drought claiming many areas. March also brought exceptionally warm temperatures, [...]
