3 replies to this topic

[downtownjr]

Here is a link to a group of drought maps back for decades

http://www.nytimes.c....html?ref=earth

[Mike120]

Very Interesting! I remember the drought in South Texas during the '50's, but I didn't remember that it lasted 6 years.

Good gosh, does this mean we've been having global warming since 1896 and only just realized it????

[rjmoses]

Just got home last night after a month in Colorado.

Driving through Colorado, Kansas and Missouri along I-70 really showed the drought effects.

Corn: It was really noticeable in irrigated fields --- Where the water hit, most corn looked OK, by where it didn't get hit, it was maybe 2' tall and dead. There were a few irrigated fields that looked like they were pretty hurt.

Beans: Most early beans in MO. looked OK from the road. But it's hard to say what the pods looked like. Second crop looked pathetic! Most fields look like a 30% germination rate and only 6" tall.

Pastures: Gone! Even the weeds were burned up!

Ponds: Many of them just dust bowls.

Got home: Big, old linden and maple trees had lost branches as big as 2'. Yard-worst brown I've ever seen. Alfalfa field mowed 3rd cutting on 7/15 is now about 8" tall and in heavy bloom. Don't know if it would even be worth it to cut.

Orchardgrass fields: Good news: Not even foxtail, crabgrass or crow's foot showing! (I wonder if drought is nature's form of weed control.)

Rain gauge: 3/4" in 6 weeks. History shows about 4.5" since May 1st. (1.75" May; 1.5" June; .6" July; .7" August.)

Ralph

[Teslan]

Interesting maps. I didn't realize in 2006 that there was such a large drought. I guess I don't really notice all that much if there is a drought or not where I live if there was plenty of snowpack in the mountains to provide us with irrigation water. This last winter we had very little so that means not much irrigation water this summer. Thus feeling the drought this year. Like we did kind of in 2002, but we sold some water rights in 2003 so 2002 was better for us with irrigation water then now. It shows basically no drought in 1993, but I remember running out of irrigation water that summer also. I guess they just count rainfall during the growing season.