Having just bought a ton of new trees/plants (which means they require the most intensive watering schedule), and I'm now forced to water like a mad man.

It just rubs me the wrong way to use LOTS of water a time when *conserving* water is most critical! It's like driving a Hummer when we're on our last drops of oil.

Making matters worse, I have watched the rain radar obsessively on the net... as my neighborhood is circled by rain showers but the showers literally part as they pass over my neck of the woods. There must be something about Knoxville... geographically... that pushes the clouds away in this climate. We have had none of those "pop up" showers!

Almost a quarter of an inch fell a couple days ago... our best rain in two months....and the dry season is supposed to be starting only now!

Climates all over the nation are being changed. Some places are experiencing multiple floods while others are seeing drought.

I hope something changes. I've seen this pattern develop fairly consistently over the past few years. Unfortunately, I am not going to be surprised if we see this type of weather more and more as years go by.

My fields are so dry that patches of dirt are beginning to form. The grass and vegetation are not just dry or dead, they are completely missing. I am also starting to see more tree deaths. I looked over on the hillside near me yesterday and noticed many dead trees in the woods. If things don't change soon, I may look over to a completely brown hillside. Frequently the damage caused by stress doesn’t show up immediately in plants. I'm concerned that even if we get rain, we may still loose even more than what can be seen presently. I wish there was a light at the end of the tunnel, but right now I can't see it.

Atwork, your posting reflects the thoughts I've been having for some time from what I see around me. When I try to talk about what I'm seeing with the climate changes, I feel like people see me as Ms. Gloom'n'doom. But I just can't deny that I'm seeing some really obvious patterns of change. When I speak to people in their 70's and 80's and they say they have never seen the like of the weather this year, I can't help but get a creeped out feeling. When I talk to my family in Indiana and Western New York, the summer temperatures there are often the same as here or a couple degrees higher. I noticed it last summer, but this year it's happening more.

When the huge old hickories, oaks etc. that surround my house put out new leaves after the Easter freeze I was amazed that they were able to manage that. But plants frequently amaze me with their will to survive. Everyone I spoke with seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as if we were out of the woods. But as I look out the window now, the leaves look wrong. They droop and curl and the color is not good. I'm sure it's not obvious to anyone who does not "really look" at trees, but that's how it is.

I've seen plants come back from bad conditions many times, but like us, there is a limit to what they can take.

I was glad to read that somebody else is seeing it too. It's very scary that everyone isn't.

Pretty much ALL climatologists recognize global warming as something happening that hasn't happened before. There is no evidence of this degree of climate change occurring over such a short time in the Earth's past except for the time that the dinosaurs died out. It's widely thought that that episode was due to a giant meteor hitting the earth.
Most climatologists and meteorologists attribute many of the current weather changes, at least indirectly, to global warming. Droughts and floods have always been around. Cyclical weather changes are nothing new. Hopefully, our current weather (at least the drought part) is just that, but there's definitely reason to consider that that may not be, or at least completely be, the case. Given what we currently know and don't know as fact, no reasonable person with an open mind would claim that the drought is here to stay or even that it is because of global warming. Similarly, no one with an open mind would completely discount that possibility.

"‘Climate change is real’ is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince
the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of
these fears is justified. Global climate changes occur all the time due to natural causes
and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural ‘noise.’"
It has been warmer than now just depending on who you want to believe. Of course, where was the thermometer.
And as for the carbons causing our warming; tell the Martians to dispense with their carbon emissions since mars is warming faster than the earth. H'm, why are our cities warmer than the country sides? Seems like they say its because of all the pavements, guess it could also be all those reflective rooftops, reflective buildings and what about all those sitting shiny auto's in the parking lots. Could they be reflecting earth warm up? Hey, this is fun, think I'll become an activist and join Gore since neither of us knows what we are talking about.

When you say, "Global climate changes occur all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural ‘noise’" that also seems to be easily misinterpreted. There is data that fairly clearly illustrates that human activity is having an effect on climate. The degree of the effect is hotly debated, but that doesn't mean the effects cannot be seen. If human activity is having as great of an effect as many climatologists think possible and we wait until the exact amount of human influence is known, we may cook in our own juices before anything is done to address the problem.

You are right to want change to occur in a responsible way. We need to act reasonably and not on emotion. But, just as there are people using gloom and doom to push their beliefs, there are also those that choose to ignore the whole thing and act as if there were no reason to even examine what's happening. I am surprised at the number of people that just want to bury their heads in the ground. Maybe it's a counter reaction to other's excitement, but both sides need to stay aware of the facts and stop acting on emotion.

But back to the drought moniter. Tennessee is much, much drier this week. Most of the state is in extreme drought.

How are the shrubs looking in the burbs where the shrubs are mostly evergreens?
It was almost funny driving through ne TN last week and seeing a small nursery offering a talk on xeriscaping.

So far as the drought here goes, I noticed yesterday that even though my creek/stream is still there (surprisingly it's not down that much), the weeds on the creekbank are wilting. Even the creekbank is showing signs of drought.

I haven't seen any evergreen tree deaths at my place yet, but the drought may have a cumulative effect that shows up later.