here we go again.

I don't even know if everyone ever made it out of the last drought before slipping back into this one.

Quailhunter, How dry are y'all there?

Dawn

Dawn, How weird that you have 'less drought' than the rest of Oklahoma.

I've had some decent rain this week, more than an inch. Nothing to move the drought monitor, but it is nice to give the hoses a day or two break.

It is very bad where I am north of Collinsville. We had a decent shower around June 20th and that's the last time we had anything. Went the entire month of May with probably less than 1/2"

We did total a couple of inches in June. Totally missed the rain last week. Didn't get a drop. Tulsa measures rain at the airport. They picked up almost an inch last week, but it was a very isolated shower. Nobody else picked up much of it. According to the paper, Tulsa is a few inches behind normal. I'd say I'm closer to 5-7" below here at my house.

Carol,

I ought to feel guilty but I don't. There were a couple of years in the early to mid-2000s when the Texas drought overflowed the border into Love County and I was in D-3 drought and none of the rest of you were. Twice! So I think Mother Nature is trying to make it up to me this year. : )

I can assure y'all that the fact that the southern half of Love County is not in drought is deceiving. It is only because we had a bunch of rain at the end of May/beginning of June. Despite that rain, the ponds are empty, the creeks are low and some have stopped running, the ground is cracking, etc. etc. etc. I believe we look better on paper than we do in real life.

Quailhunter, You certainly have my sympathy. I have had plenty of years just like the one you're having now, and it isn't fun. I hope y'all get some meaningful rain soon, but I fear you might not. My experience is that once drought sets in, it feeds on itself and becomes increasingly worse.

What really worries me is that it seems like our deep soil moisture levels and our ground water bounce back less and less, recoving more poorly after each successive drought year. At one point our property had lots of springs and a swamp. Even our big pond was spring-fed. Now, the swamp is not swampy, most of the springs have quit running at the rate of 1 or 2 a year and our big pond is empty more often than not because the spring that fed it dried up after successive droughts in 2005, 2006 and 2008. Now the former swamp is just dry, brown vegetation where is used to be lush and green. One of our creeks was a spring-fed creek, but then that spring dried up and now it just catches runoff every now and then when heavy rain falls. None of our ponds hold water for long even after very heavy rainfall. The successive droughts have just ruined our formerly wet areas where frogs and other amphibians once thrived.

Here's the U.S. Drought Monitor for Larry, Helen, Jay and others who live outside Oklahoma. Kansas and Arkansas have a horrifying level of drought this week. It is getting worse there so very quickly now.

It is very disturbing to see how many states have drought conditions....all the way north to Canada. I've never seen this much of the USA in drought conditions at the same time. Granted, the U. S. Drought Monitor has been in use for only about a dozen years, but I bet we have no record of drought being this widespread across the country before since they began keeping weather records. If the current conditions continue or worsen, I bet this year will be worse than 1936 even thought of being, and that's saying a lot.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: USA Drought Monitor july 10, 2012

Dawn, thanks. We have been blessed around close with wind and rain hitting off and on. I am not wild about the wind but there has not been any wide spread damage. At my house we are just over 4" for the month. My neighbor less than a mile away said that he was kicking up dust with his turning plow as he was breaking up his garden this weekend, but he lives in an area where the rain has to come very slow or it just runs across his property.

Larry