we were fearing this here in southern kentucky... but I thank my god... we have had 3 inches of rain in the past two weeks.. I must remember to pray for others
John

Thanks Deanna! But, Oh no, there is this brown spot upper right corner in upstate NY, so the forecast is for persistent drought here. It rains around us but not here. Right now I have a sprinkler going, but that is what we have to do to keep the yard alive. One dead dwarf conifer would cost me the same as a high water bill.
Bernd

Interesting.
I consider our area to be in a drought, but this map does not. I wonder if it's because of all the spring rain we had.

You have my sympathy. We're only in moderate drought, but with temps in the 100s and no rain in the forecast, severe is on the way. Yup, the electric and water bills are going to be massive. The watering doesn't seem to help, either. Hostas that have never had trouble before are turning into crispy critters. Oh, well, they should come back next year. Let's hope the lack of rain is a one year phenomenon.

I guess I'm fortunate to have a woodland garden,plus we are on a well,and I never water,anyway. We are still getting rain here during the week,so everything is well. Sorry for all of you who are on city water. We only turn on air conditioning in the day,and off at night,as our nights are in the 60's. Good luck! Phil

We are in Missouri also, extreme drought. This is the second summer in a row of this. No rain in the forecast, 108 yesterday and the same for today. I think if it had not been for last year's tornado which took out a third of our city and thus dropped the demand for water, we might be on water conserving this year. The river which supplies our water has dropped from 500 gallons per second over the dam to 65 gps.

I keep watering, I know that the trees soak up a lot of it but we didn't lose any trees last year while even very old native trees were dying all over town. I figure the high cost of the water bill won't even come close to what it would cost to have some of our big trees taken out if they die, so we might be ahead after all.

According to NOOA, La Nina effects are gone, this is normal summer weather now but El Nino could be building for the last part of 2012,which could relieve some of the drought in the northern half of the US but worsen it in the southern half. Not to mention what it could do to the southern half of the rest of the world.

Whichever way it goes, it appears we are screwed.

Sandy

Persistant here. I figured as much. I don't care about the grass, but have been watering when needed on all the plant beds. Not just to keep them alive for the sake of $$ they cost or to look pretty, but we are getting an increasing number of critters looking for food (seeds, necter, pollen). I have a butterfly watering station as well as a bird bath, two bowls of water, a large saucer for water/bathing and a small one as well. I've seen just about every kind of bird we have around stopping at one or more and have to clean and refill everything each night. Something even ate the peanut butter out of a snapped mouse trap last night-I wonder if it got it's tongue caught (we have been using the enclosed "no see" traps for the field mice that are getting out of control, coming in from the fields and being distructive around the house-just about everything is welcome AS LONG as it doesn't try to destroy the cars or house. When they start doing that, then all bets are off). The little "trap door" where you put in the bait was open, so I am thinking it was a coon.

My hostas were pretty much ok until Wednesday when we had not only heat, but a constant 5-10 mph wind. Now previously ok looking Hostas have some fried leaves.

Melissa, we're in extreme drought because last summer we had record breaking heat and drought, which was kicked off with a lack of rain in the spring. There was never any moisture recovery because we only had 5 inches of snow all winter and it rained probably twice, which was very strange. So that worsened the drought. Normally, we have boatloads of rain in the spring, but that didn't happen either (just like 2011 spring), combined with higher than normal temps. This summer we're breaking the heat records we set last year. In order to get caught up, we'd have to get 13 inches of rain, which ain't gonna happen.

Sandy, I have family in Joplin, and two of them had homes destroyed while they were inside them. It was a miracle they lived, and got out with nothing more serious than a few scratches. My cousin had to be dug out because his house literally collapsed on top of him. Very scary stuff!

Deanna

I can relate...I'm just across the river in Illinois and my whole yard and landscape is fried. I've lost more plants this year than I can count, and am watering every few days to try to save the ones that are barely hanging on.

Deanna, so glad your family is safe. We were 4 blocks away from the devastation so we didn't have any damage but it was a horrible, scary time. I'll take a drought any time rather than ever have to go through at again!

Sandy

I don't know how el nino effects the rest of the country, but we always have a wet winter and a cool summer. I always lose a lot of iris in el nino years. I'm in NE Texas.

bkay

We are in a dry region, but not drought. The farmers around here are doing pretty well, probably because we had a lot of rain in the spring. We have a well so have watered some as necessary to save the plants, especially the trees we bought and planted in the early spring.

I feel so bad for all the farmers in the Midwest who can only watch as their crops dry up in the cracked "soil" and their animals have to be shipped off early because they can't afford to feed them.

And I am angry as hell at the politicians who have wasted the time we could have used to start doing something instead of denying the fact of global warming that was right before their eyes

chris

Nah, we just need to dig up all our hosta and move to England where they're having one of their 'wettest summers in history'.

Here is a link that might be useful: London Weather Unsettles Athletes...

Not sure if xeriscaping will promote further drying of the areas that install them, but it sure looks hot to me. The folks who say no climate change poo poo it, well, all I can say is they must not do any gardening. We are able to grow plants here in south Alabama now that are more tropicalesque than before, in the ground. Our temps are up in the summer, our temps are up in the winter as well, although we did have an unusual winter in 2010 when we had freezing temps for two weeks--unheard of.

We also had a very dry summer that year, and that is when we had an irrigation meter put in, so the water we used for the garden did not have to include sewage fees--which are more than the cost of the water itself.

After working in south Texas on boats where they put a padlock and chain on the water valves at the docks, and every plant in the area had a good heavy layer of dust over it, the marshes dried up and cracked the earth, marine skeletons lay everywhere, you bet when I got off work and came home to green green lush looking Alabama, and crossed the state line to see the sign "Welcome to Alabama The Beautiful," I felt like getting down and kissing the earth. What a joy! What a difference a bit of water makes!!!
And the poor Iowa corn crop, it is about to become popcorn I think. Even more financial problems in the heartland.

So pray for rain, or if you are a Native American, do the rain dance. The great Thunder Bird might bring some rain.

Moccasin, the South West usually is always hot in summer, I think. I remember spending a few days in Phoenix at 104 degrees, then coming home to NY State and driving along a river, it felt like being in a jungle.
Bernd

Can you say "dust bowl"? According to today's paper, the drought is the worst in 50 years. I remember the drought of 1954, and this is worse. Only the dust bowl of the '30's was worse than this one. We need 12" of rain at this point to bring things back to something approaching normal...I am hoping for a wet fall and winter (but no ice storms. Please!).

Sandy

ci lantro,

We had a very wet Spring in NE, but a very hot Several technical heatwaves with 3 days of plus 90 and many times close to 100 degrees and a mostly dry Summer. We did have a 1 1/2 inch plus storm roll through a few days ago and I did see that they are lowering the lake levels here in anticipation of the threat of flooding later.

Sorry, this must be like rubbing salt in the wound to those suffering in other parts of the country.

Jon

There is a book which was a best seller not long ago, and I really recommend it to folks who want to know what it was all about in the Dust Bowl days. Dust storms from the midwest and the west reached New York City and Boston and turned them dark at midday. That's just for starters. Brown lung disease, animals dying, babies wasting away, it was something which permeated the whole culture.

They wore out the land, and then moved on. That was the way the big cotton growers did, it was what they'd done from the earliest days when the land was fresh and new. And then there was that great flood in the 1920s all along the Mississippi River Valley....I highly recommend John Barry's RISING TIDE book on that one. I think he rightly calls it the disaster that changed America.

I'm linking a book for its information, not suggesting you get it from there. You can read a few pages of it online....if it doesn't grip you immediately, I'll be surprised. THE WORST HARD TIME: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived The Great American Dust Bowl. By Timothy Egan. Not a long book, but very enlightening. I know it affected MY family, because my uncles went west to work in CCC camps and help stabilize the land from erosion, in the years before I was born.

Along with the great depression, there was THIS. And I'm sure many tales are in the collective family memory of those alive today, to give a sense of unease and foreboding of maybe it can happen again.

As Pogo Possum said, "We have met the enemy and it is US."

Here is a link that might be useful: The Worst Hard Time by Tim Egan

while it is too hot to go outside and work in the sun, also take some time to read (or re-read)"The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck. It is still timeless, the classic novel about Okies fleeing the dust bowl.

Sandy

Speaking of The Dust Bowl, here's an article comparing the current drought to it.

Deanna

Here is a link that might be useful: 2012 Drought Rivals Dust Bowl

Sandy and Moccasin - thanks for the recommended reading. I always enjoy a good book.

Dust Bowl article with some striking photos:

Deanna

Here is a link that might be useful: Dust Bowl article with photos

Blah...rain all around and none here. Heard the thunder...saw the clouds and even the rain...but nada.

Whilst I, certainly, cannot claim perfection in this category, This thread makes me take the dangerous, desperate measure of making a request/comment regarding database (posting) subject line guidelines.

I clicked this one merely because I wanted to see what someone else thought was worth the OMG thingy.

Now if I was to be searching the history of droughts in the U.S.A. this year or in any years, I'd not have found the informational list of post here...

fwiw,

hh

How funny. When I saw OMG the first thing I thought of was the weather, the heat. It just goes to show, how the female mind and the male mind are wired differently, lol! I understood immediately! ;)

Sandy