The drought continues

[brin]

Since about 1980 my part of Georgia has pretty much been in drought conditions.....sure there were some periods of heavy rain but for the most part our weather pattern changed then and has never really stabilized....not like it use to be..My small lake was created in 1950 and is spring fed...up until 2005 the spillway never stopped but on and off since 2005 the spring stops and so does the spillway...my lake was down over a foot and a half a month ago...we have had some rain and I will check it this weekend....hope everyone gets the rain they need.

 

[daugen]

Brin, this map below isn't looking too good for you. For fun, I tried to locate Mt. Vernon on Google to see if you were in the red zone, which I think you are,
and your neighboring town is Vidalia. Well....are you living in the Vidalia onion capital of the world? Or wrong Vidalia?....
That's my favorite onion! Hope the supply doesn't dry up. Drew

 

[brin]

Brin, this map below isn't looking too good for you. For fun, I tried to locate Mt. Vernon on Google to see if you were in the red zone, which I think you are,
and your neighboring town is Vidalia. Well....are you living in the Vidalia onion capital of the world? Or wrong Vidalia?....
That's my favorite onion! Hope the supply doesn't dry up. Drew

daugen....No we don't live in Viallia...we are about 40 miles east of Atlanta as the crow flies...so we are in the striped zone on your map...drought but improving....Yep, gotta love those onions ...I eat 'em everyday until they run out for the season...

 

[TripleR]

Ironically, we are 20 inches below normal rainfall and still in drought status and it is too muddy to get to our tractors and are ponds are close to full. Our issues now are ground water, this summer many wells went dry that have never gone dry and people had to drill new deeper ones. We are putting sixty more acres to grade for irrigation at a cost of $40,000; very hard to farm and make a profit otherwise. We no longer farm, but our land has to produce to keep it in the market for good renters.

As mentioned, not far from me, the Mississippi river is being blasted to get bedrock out of the way to keep river traffic flowing. Usually all that is needed is the occasional sand dredge to keep the channels clear.

A few years ago, much of this area was under flood waters and they had to blow a levy to keep cities down stream from flooding; cycle of life thing.

 

[Pete Judd]

I guess that we are lucky here in the PNW. We had 80 some days this summer without rain, but all 3 of my creeks still flowed (spring feed). Still have normal water levels in the well, and can pump out of the pond as well.

But I sure feel for those that lost their crops in the midwest, and now the barge operators on the "western rivers".

 

[Bob77064]

We were 11 inches behind in rainfall as of 11-15-12. I am thankful to say that as of today we are caught up and back to normal. Lets hope everyone gets the rain they need. Ken Sweet

Ken, we are about 50 miles south of you. We had a lot of rain over the weekend, the ground is saturated.

 

[3v0]

Historians more or less agree that the town I live in was dust bowl central. I did not grow up here but I did grow up on a farm.

If the farmers were farming with the same methods and crops used in the 30's we would most likely have the same problem. Thankfully the low and no till methods along with improved crops have reduced the amount of water needed.

In my area we have seen a lot of failed crops and some occasional blowing but nothing even close to that of the dust bowl.

Did anyone else grow up on a tractor working summer fallow ?

 

[daugen]

Drought Killing Trees Across America | Weather News | Weather Underground

this isn't good either.