2022 Drought Thread

[Guest]

Last night provided some badly needed rain, but it was also hit and miss. While there was a flash flood advisory on the east side of Austin, only got 0.4" here at home. The spotty nature of the rain is pretty obvious here:

 

Meanwhile, the areas that needed it the worst largely missed out:

 

I don't know that I've ever seen bluebonnets blooming over brown, dry grass like they are this year. Some of it is that grass is still dormant from a late freeze, but there's no doubt it's also dry out there.

Meanwhile, the extended forecast shows continued dry...

 

[Parliament 13980]

That's true, to a lesser degree all the way into Canada.

[NorthLoop 13908]

Everyone get your AC serviced. Gonna be a long summer. 

[YChang 3368]

Less than 3 year old AC, solar panels, and battery for the win this summer!

[Loop 1604 226]

Fire weather in the western/southern hill country this week. This summer is gonna suck.

[Spaulding Smails 1548]

Someone made the comment in the rain thread, but this year looks "different" as if we're in the midst of a big drought.  Seems like wildflowers are late and few and far between.  Native grasses and trees haven't started budding out yet.  Everything just looks brown and shiny.  Kinda like Mother Nature knows we're going into a nasty drought. 

[SimonBolivar 10648]

That downpour did wonders for my little spot in SE McLennan. Everything is looking like spring this morning and we dodged the real heavy stuff as the tornado warning we had never made it to the ground and we had 0 hail. Looks very scattered for who got drenched and who got .05". 

Edited March 22, 2022 by SimonBolivar

[Guest]

Woof this low humidity is killing me. Yesterday was humidity in the teens and a north wind. Dries me out. 

[Parliament 13980]

wrong thread.  Ban user.

Edited March 25, 2022 by Parliament

[Guest]

Chart below takes us through the first week of April. I've had a half-inch for March. Joy.

 

[Post Oak 20068]

 

[atomheartbevo 88751]

On 3/22/2022 at 9:32 AM, Loop 1604 said:

Fire weather in the western/southern hill country this week. This summer is gonna suck.

I finally got the fire hazard notices turned off on my phone.  Annoying the shit out of me.

[swraith 324]

It’s going to be a rough spring/summer for central plains (including TX).

[Nueces River Rat 5485]

30 minutes ago, swraith said:

It’s going to be a rough spring/summer for central plains (including TX).

Weather pattern is setup similar to 2010-2011 when the state had its last severe drought.  Corpus has probably had more days with humidity in the teens this month than it does in a normal year.   As long as the prevailing upper level wind blow in from the north, it will keep the Gulf clear of any major rainmakers and tropical weather as we get into the summer.   This is fine with me as we could use a big break with weather related insurance claims which gives the insurance market a reason to jack our rates higher for which many are doing so right now thanks to the past several years of weather disasters and inflation.  

[Updawg 2239]

They will still fuck you


We need the rain

[leaf 681]

On 3/25/2022 at 7:37 PM, FirstTimeCaller said:

Woof this low humidity is killing me. Yesterday was humidity in the teens and a north wind. Dries me out. 

[Al_4_ISU 12199]

On 3/22/2022 at 8:00 AM, Parliament said:

That's true, to a lesser degree all the way into Canada.

Yup.  Our rivers and creeks are very low right now, and we've had all of our snow melted for a couple of weeks.  The water table is pretty taxed.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13275]

getting worse out there quickly. 

 

[Larry T. Spider 1740]

The 10 day forecast, which gets us into May, looks bone dry.

From what I have learned from droughts in the past, it’s really hard to dig out. The ground gets so dry and the creeks go completely empty. When a normal rain shower comes, the ground just sucks up all the water and the creeks and lakes don’t really benefit.

[clapclapclap 8998]

6 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

getting worse out there quickly. 

Actually no.  Some got worse, some got better.  D4 increased, all the other categories decreased, resulting in a net reduction from last week in the state's Drought Severity and Coverage Index.  316 this week, 325 last week.

https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/DmData/DataTables.aspx?state,tx

[Blotto 23228]

not Texas, but I saw this story on CNN earlier:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/27/us/water-intake-exposed-lake-mead-drought-climate/index.html

Quote

The lake's plummeting water level has exposed one of the reservoir's original water intake valves for the first time, officials say.

The valve had been in service since 1971 but can no longer draw water, according to the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which is responsible for managing water resources for 2.2 million people in Southern Nevada, including Las Vegas.

Southwest could be proper fucked if this goes on another 5 -10 years. 

[High Plains Drifter 10916]

6 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

getting worse out there quickly. 

 

 

Sitting right damn smack in the middle of Exceptional Drought.

 

Got a few drops last night, collected some insignificant amount in the rain barrels.

First precipitation we've had since an inch or two of snow in Jan. Before that, it was October of last year since last precipitation. Forty year old trees dying or dead. There is one nearly dead one too near house for comfort-- I'll have to take it down in the next few years. Water well went dry two years ago, and had to drill an additional 250 ft down (from a depth of 200 ft) to get a decent flow rate.

Its a tinderbox around here. Its only a matter of time before the inevitable conflagration burns it all down.

 

[Felix 605]

If not even the mighty Colorado can supply the SW and California, we need to seriously rethink the water rights for those areas.  Time to start building desalinization plants all up the west coast if you ask me.  God only knows if this will get any better since it's been going on for so long and with climate change in process, I don't think anybody can predict what will happen with any certainty.