Drought hits southern U.S. pretty hard

"This is the driest winter we've had since the late 1960s," says John Nielsen-Gammon, the Texas state climatologist. "It's in the top five historically, back to 1895."

More than half of Texas' winter wheat crop has been rated as "poor" to "very poor," because of the drought and a few episodes of extreme cold, he says.

"Dry weather continues to take its toll on wheat," said Jerry Warren, extension agent for Callahan County, Texas. "We'll need rain soon to salvage any wheat for grain."

National Weather Service meteorologist Victor Murphy agrees: "This could end up being one of the more devastating droughts, agriculturally speaking and for wildfires, if we don't start getting normal to above-normal rainfall before June."

Fires add to woes Normally, winter is the dry season in Texas, Nielsen-Gammon says, but it's usually not this dry. Much of West Texas has received less than an inch of precipitation over the past six months (where an average would be 3-5 inches), and he reports there are places along the Texas-Mexico border that haven't seen any rain at all since September.

"Many drought indicators in east-central Texas have reached the 'exceptional' drought level," the Drought Monitor reports. "If rain does not materialize soon, intensification of the current drought is likely."

Wildfires have also been a concern this winter and early spring in Texas.

The extreme dryness during the past several months and an abundance of vegetation that grew during a wet winter and early spring in 2010 have combined to create an active 2011 wildfire season, Nielsen-Gammon reports.

So far this year, Texas Forest Service has suppressed 605 fires burning 70,000 acres. That's compared with 149 fires burning 5,221 acres at this time last year. Nearly 180 of Texas' 254 counties have burn bans, which prohibits outdoor burning of any sort.

In Oklahoma, the 120-day span from late November to late March was the driest such period on record for central and southwestern Oklahoma, according to data from the Oklahoma Mesonet, a network of weather stations. "Some reports from western Oklahoma indicate the need for emergency assistance for livestock water will soon occur if the dry conditions persist for much longer," notes Oklahoma's assistant state climatologist Gary McManus in an online drought report.

Fuchs says that the lack of moisture has affected the winter wheat crops in Oklahoma and also Kansas.

Blame it on La Niña In Florida, the South Florida Water Management reported last week that the area is in the midst of its driest dry season (winter) in about 80 years.

The water level of Lake Okeechobee — which supplies water to millions of people in Palm Beach, Broward and Dade counties in Florida — was recently reported at 11.59 feet, says Susan Sylvester, the director of operations control for the water management district. The average level at this time of year is 14.25 feet.

Rain in the past week has helped slightly in Florida. "We got a shot in the arm with the rainfall, but it doesn't get us out of the drought," Sylvester says.

The southern dryness this winter can be blamed on the La Niña climate pattern, a periodic cooling of Pacific Ocean water that affects weather patterns worldwide. Southern states almost always have a winter with less precipitation during a La Niña winter.

"This was a fairly strong La Niña event," Fuchs says. "One of the strongest on record" — and it's expected to continue through the spring and into the early summer.

However, on the good side, Fuchs says the California situation has improved a great deal because of a very wet March, with near-record rain and snows for much of the state. Gov. Jerry Brown declared the state's drought over last week.

"With the way water is harvested in California, stored in reservoirs and shipped all over the state, this last month played a big part in eliminating any dryness in the region," Fuchs says.

Contributing: The Associated Press

For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters

View the Original article