Drought Check Conditions In Your Neck Of The Woods
 

We had thunder, lightening and a bare ten minutes of rain. It usually means cooler weather...not. Watching the fires in OK. My mother in Texas says it is grim and crunchy brown. The spring up the road is barely a trickle, a dry summer and very little snowfall this winter has about dried it up. It's still green here. I am watching in horror and disbelief the pictures of the horrible drought conditions over much of the country. How are you faring?

We've in our second year of severe drought here, with temps up to 117 so far in the past week. Last year, all our crops wouldn't set fruit and then burned up, no matter how much we watered. We had an extremely mild winter, and then this year we're over-run with grasshoppers. I didn't even try a garden this year, but everyone I know who did is fighting a losing battle, between the heat and the bugs.

Right now I'm sitting slightly outside the evacuation zone of the "biggest wildfire ever"...to quote the news stations...in Creek County, Oklahoma. They've already evacuated two towns. They believe it was man made, but accidental. It's burned over 50,000 acres so far.

However, there was another fire just barely northeast of me that they believe was deliberately set, argh! It's burned more than 2 square miles so far, with hot spots still flaring up. I've got my truck and my bug-out bag ready to go, just in case. I've had to bug out three times in the five years I've lived here, but luckily never actually lost anything to fire...knock on wood. :)

Calliemoonbeam, been watching the fires on TV all through the day. Praying for all in danger and praying for your safety and families. I bet you won't have a bit of sleep tonite. I guess in some ways we are used to California wildfires but OK is having a bad time of it in that department, too. Stay safe!

We're in our second year of drought here too. Not as severe as OK but bad enough. We had 1/4" of rain this a.m. and I went to the garden and dug potatoes. I did not even collect mud on my shoes. Potatoes dug clean. Couldn't even tell it had rained.

Its been so hot that potatoes near the surface and not covered by mulch "cooked" and had to be discarded. The bush beans didn't produce and the pinto climber beans on the fence have not set beans. In fact, I don't recall seeing a bloom. Replanted things have not germinated. Pulled all my onions and they are the size of large marbles. The melons and cucumbers have not set fruit although there are a few small melons starting tho probably too late to mature before frost. Sweet potatoes vines are turning yellow.

We try to keep every inch of the garden covered by mulch but its difficult because its so dry mulch is hard to come by. Most of Iowa is considered in drought with the "extreme" category increasing weekly. Also, we're now under a burn ban. Leaves on the trees are starting to turn color over a month early. Corn crops look grim. Combination of extreme heat and drought meant the corn did not pollinate so no (or very little) corn on the ears and its drying down like it shouldn't do for another month. Beans in our area still look fairly good but I'm unsure whether or not they are actually producing anything.

Orchards have no fruit because of the unusually warm winter and spring buds broke early then we got hit with a hard frost. I picked a quart of cherries off our cherry tree that usually produces 3 or 4 gallons.

Ann-NWIowa, I haven't seen anything like this in my lifetime and I am 55 years old. Sorry, to hear about your garden it must be heartbreaking to see all your hard work dry up in the heat and no rain in sight.

though weve had recent rains, we are in a modorate drought

I grew up in a part of the country that was in constant drought every year it seemed. Perhaps that is why my garden is sailing through it so well, because I learned how to garden with limited water.

We have had a terrible drought, up until the last three weeks.

Too lazy to check the rain gauge tonight, but I'll bet we had at least 3 inches, this evening.

Greening up around our area.

Yesterday and the day before we had rain, none today.

It is weird that so many things happening we never hear a word about on the radio news. We don't get TV, we listen to the radio and follow along on forums.

A few days ago I was asking about this year's drought, and I got a dressing-down for it. Apparently the region that had drought last year is completely different from the region that has drought this year. And I am 'rude' for thinking some of the areas are the same. ???

To me the drought maps look a lot the same from last year. But I don't know.

I sure hope that folks in these drought areas are okay.

Technically, we're still in "Extreme" drought. And, like much of the central US, the area of "Exceptional" is just getting bigger and bigger...

For the most part, yes, though there are a few, specific areas that have overlapped.

U.S. Drought Monitor Archives
If you go to the drought monitor's archive page you can compare the current map to one from a year ago. There's a very marked difference.

Right on the edge of "extreme drought" here. Ground is dust on the surface, hard as a rock below. Trees are dying, corn fields are all dried up. There'll be no corn harvest in my area this year. Got a little rain early yesterday, supposed to get some tomorrow (keeping my fingers crossed).

It's bad here, but worse in other places.

We had lots of water last year but this year we are dry as can be. I cut lots of hay last year I had 110 tons this year I'm praying for 30. I have leased a piece of ground from an elderly lady who went into a nursing home this past winter she accused me of not irrigating her property after she heard how little hay I got I was a water hog though and put an extra day on it each week just didn't have much to put on it. The old people have never seen anything like this in the area it's worse then anything in the last 100 years here.

We are crunchy brown here. My garden has survived though. It's a little one this year and needs only very small amounts of water.

I really have never seen it this bad before in my life and I'm no spring chicken!

No idea, but it has been heavily raining here for the past 4 hours. It was torrential sideways downpour when it first started. Blew my lawn chairs clean across the yard, and destroyed my chicken tractor. Massive storm front.

We got that storm front too and despite the wind blown stuff we are very grateful for the rain. We got over 2 inches...really makes a difference with the trees, pasture and bushes not to mention the lawn and garden.

We are in a long-term drought condition, but our droughts aren't the result of lower rainfall around here. Since almost all of our water comes from Lake Mead, the areas that feed the Colorado River are the big players in our droughts.

The bigger problem is political. Other Colorado River water users, Los Angeles for example, have never had a lot of sympathy for Las Vegas. They see it as a frivolous adult playground in the middle of the desert that isn't deserving of the water it gets. More recently, Las Vegas is seen by rural areas of Nevada as a bully, using it's votes to take water resources from ranchers and smaller towns north of the city. Those politics are playing out right now.

The immediate emergency is that the water level in Lake Mead is lowering close to the level of the city water intake. If it falls below that level there is no simple alternative way to draw water for the city. They are feverishly blasting tunnels at Lake Mead to place a new water intake at a greater depth.

Las Vegas is all about the future of its water.

I totally agree! I am SO thankful for the rain! Just yesterday I was contemplating whether or not I should water the lawn. We are getting ready to list our house, so green grass is kind of expected by the buyers, particularly directly in front of the house, and our grass is getting crunchy. ;) I also rehomed my 13 chicks this morning, which was great timing b/c my chicken tractor (which was where they lived) was destroyed in this storm.

Dry-Dry-dry-severe drought here in central Missouri!!

Tress are dying & loosing their leaves-
grass is brown as country biscuit-
no garden if not for watering-
no one can find hay anywhere-having to sell out livestock-
feed prices getting higher & makers having trouble finding products to make feed with-

Its just bad!!!

Seems our hilly area is a microclimate. Spring ruined any expected crop from our fruit trees. It was dry and we had 2 killing frosts with excessive heat between. June and part of July were dry. The end of July and now, the grass is growing like I've never seen this time of year. It's green, the dandelions are coming back , our 3rd cutting looks like it will be good.I sure can't speak for the rest of the state.

Well had rain all around us yesterday,nothing.Now it's cloudy and Humid but no rain.

big rockpile

According to the local weather talking head we are in a drought and about 6 inches of precip below normal for this time of year......... although it's raining at the moment....
BUT the national forecaster out of Albany (NY) has issued a "flash flood warning" and is saying we are to get 1-3 inches of rain today; with pockets getting upwards of 3-6 inches....
Soooo if'n we get 4-5 inches of rain today there goes our "below precip" and most likely our newly seeded lawn, driveway, and who knows what else will end up at the bottom of our hill??????

update, we have had over 6 " of rain this past week so we went from drought to full pond and standing water, however, some areas are still really dry where it is high and it ran off, and there is still hay instead of lawn in some areas..but some tiny green sprouts

Just now, my husband googled how much rain we got in our area and this thread came up! lol He's never been here before, and he thought it was funny that he found my posts. haha!

Here at the farm we have had <0.2" of rain since May 1. It splits and goes right around us. People a mile either side of us finally got an inch or more but we have nothing.

I got 14 pints of beans off my garden. Then they just burnt up despite watering. The corn never pollinated. If times get hard we do have tomatoes!

I just don't think this is the last of it. I expect it to be bad for a few years more. I think it is a cycle.

Crunchy and brown here in SE Oklahoma with the Governor declaring a statewide burn ban this past week. It's not looking like we'll break this pattern anytime soon but it could be a lot worse. We were blessed with normal spring rainfall so we have water in our ponds. Praise the Lord for that!

everything is crunchy brown here also. keep having power outages, but don't know why. Realtor showed the house last week and the potential buyer wanted to check the well. THEY DRAINED IT!!!!!!! I asked the realtor how she could be so stupid as to let them do that!?!?! We didn't have water for two days!!!

OT..Micheal,I live in Ancramdale,Ny:hysterical:...about 45 minutes away from the capital.
small world isn't it? and yes we are in for flash flood warnings also.

Very bad drought here. We don't have any grass, just dry crunchy remnants. A watering ban is in effect. We did get rain last night, though it's too late for many plants.