Fire and drought may push Amazonian forests beyond tipping point

Future simulations of climate within the Amazon . com advise a longer dry season resulting in more drought and fires. Forest Hole Research Center researchers Michael Coe, Paulo Brando, Marcia Macedo and co-workers have released new research around the impacts of fireside and drought on Amazon . com tree mortality.

Their paper, released in PNAS, discovered that prolonged droughts triggered more serious and common wildfires, which consumed more forests in Amazonia than formerly understood.

Over an eight-year period, they frequently burned 50-hectare forest plots in southeast Amazonia to understand how fire frequency and climate conditions affected tree deaths. The surprise, based on Dr. Coe, was "the significance of drought. The forest did not burn much in average years, but burned extensively in drought years." Global warming is anticipated to result in shorter more serious wet seasons and longer dry seasons, with increased frequent droughts like individuals noticed in this research. Based on Dr. Coe, "We often think no more than average conditions but it's the non-average conditions we need to bother about.Inch

NASA satellite data give a regional context for is a result of the experimental burns. In 2007, fires in southeast Amazonia burned 10 occasions more forest compared to a typical climate year, "a place equal to millions of soccer fields" based on co-author Douglas Morton of NASA.

Large servings of Amazonian forests already are going through droughts and therefore are progressively prone to fire. "Farming development has produced more compact forest fragments, which exposes forest edges towards the warmer dryer conditions within the surrounding landscape and means they are susceptible to steered clear of fires," stated Dr. Macedo. "These fragmented forests may be penetrated by flammable grasses, which further boost the likelihood and concentration of future fires."

Based on lead-author Dr. Paulo Brando, "This research implies that fires already are degrading large regions of forests in Southern Amazonia and highlights the necessity to include interactions between extreme weather occasions and fire when trying to calculate the way forward for Amazonian forests within altering climate."

"No models accustomed to evaluate future Amazon . com forest health include fire, so most forecasts grossly underestimate the quantity of tree dying and overestimate overall forest health," stated Dr. Coe. The outcomes of the project reveal that extreme droughts may communicate with fires to push Amazonian forests beyond a tipping point that could abruptly increase tree mortality and alter plant life over large areas.

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Stubborn drought maintains grip on lower 48 states

Seth Perlman AP

Central Illinois farmers harvest their soybean crops on Sunday in Farmingdale, Ill. With the U.S. enduring its worst drought in decades, corn and soybean prices have soared this summer.

Seth Perlman AP

Central Illinois farmers harvest their soybean crops on Sunday in Farmingdale, Ill. With the U.S. enduring its worst drought in decades, corn and soybean prices have soared this summer.

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- The nation's worst drought in decades consumed a larger portion of the lower 48 states last week with the Midwest corn harvest in full swing, according to the latest update by a drought-tracking consortium released Thursday.

The U.S. Drought Monitor's new map shows 65.5 percent of the contiguous U.S. experiencing some form of drought as of Tuesday, creeping up from 64.8 percent a week earlier. The portion of the U.S. in extreme or exceptional drought â?? the two worst classifications â?? rose three-quarters of a percentage point to 21.5 percent.

The latest update did not reflect storms that pounded portions of Missouri and Illinois this week, in some areas dumping as much as 7 inches of rain that growers embrace as potentially beneficial to soybean crops still in the fields. Farmers also welcome moisture in the fall and snow in the winter that softens the soil and provides needed saturation for the next planting season.

Storms were expected in portions of the nation's midsection into the weekend, with some states needing the rain more than others.

The latest map released by the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln showed that the area of Iowa, the nation's biggest corn producer, deemed to be in exceptional drought rose from 2.4 percent last week to 2.5 percent. The area of land subject to that most severe classification increased 2.3 percentage points in Nebraska to 73.25 percent, while conditions in Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana did not change.

Over the next few days, "unfortunately little if any rain is expected to fall across the hard-hit drought areas in the eastern Dakotas, eastern Nebraska and the Upper Mississippi Valley/Upper Great Lakes region," Anthony Artusa of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center wrote in Thursday's update.

The forecast rain will have no impact on the already-matured corn crop currently being harvested.

As of Monday, 39 percent of that crop had been brought in from the fields â?? three times more than by this date in the previous five years due to early planting, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported. More than 54 percent of the corn crop in Illinois has been harvested, while Iowa has harvested 37 percent and Missouri 80 percent.

About 51 percent of the U.S. corn crop is classified as being in poor or very poor shape, essentially unchanged from a week earlier, the USDA said. A year ago, 20 percent of corn in the fields was listed that way.

Twenty-two percent of the U.S. soybean crops have been harvested, with 34 percent considered poor or very poor, the USDA said.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.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@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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The ridge, heat, humidity, drought, and Dust Bowl

Here come da ridge!

[ECMWF model forecast; image source: wright-weather.com]

For extremity of summertime ridges of high pressure aloft over the United States, meteorologists look at "500 millibar heights" -- in non-technical terms, that represents how high the pressure is a few miles above the Earth's surface -- and in particular how close those heights get to 600 decameters (19,685 feet). That's the benchmark, as it's about as high as those "heights" ever get.

And they're gonna get pretty close to that in a few days. [July 17 update: The 500 mb height reached 600 dm this evening over Omaha. Preliminary data suggests that's a record for that location and the farthest north 600 dm has been reached in the central states.]

Translation of all of that into what it means for people: The extreme heat of 2011, which has already been remarkable in parts of the country during the early part of the season including before summer officially even started, is about to expand as we enter into the next phase of the pattern.

[July 18 addendum: Wichita's # of 100+ degree days up through this point in the season and the average temp since June 1 have exceeded that of any year of the 1930s, and each is just shy of the highest, which occurred during the extreme heat wave of 1980.]

In the southern states, particularly the southern Plains, afternoon high temperatures have consistently been particularly extreme, assisted by how dry the soil is. Rather than some of the sun's energy going into evaporating soil moisture, it gets efficiently converted into quickly-rising temperatures each day.

And in turn, the soil dries out even more, worsening the drought.

Immediately adjacent, it's been the opposite, with exceptionally wet conditions including record flooding.

As the uber ridge expands and the heat surges north during the coming days, the atmosphere will have to work harder there than farther south for each degree of the afternoon high temperature, but any limitation in that department will be made up for in the heat index, a measure which is an attempt at quantifying the combination of heat and humidity.

Soil and crop moisture evaporating will boost the dewpoint, which translates to how humid the air feels. Dewpoints and heat indices are expected to rise to exceptionally high levels as far north as parts of the Dakotas and Minnesota this weekend into early next week.

What's more, overnight low temperatures will be quite high along with oppressive humidity.

Please be careful and take precautions! Heat (including the effects of humidity) nowadays is typically the #1 weather-related killer in the U.S. (other than vehicular accidents due to wet, snowy, or icy roads), with an estimated 1,500 each year dying on average.

This season is shaping up to be a memorable hot summer along with those such as the ones in 1930, 1934, 1936, 1954, 1980, and 1988.

We'll have to see when all is said and done, looking back from the vantage point of when we get to September and October, exactly how 2011 ends up stacking up.

There are various ways of comparing the heat, including the persistence, expanse and extremity of it.

In regard to the latter, many state high temperature records were set in the 1930s during the peak of the Dust Bowl, especially in 1936.

A significant contributor to that was the expanse of the drought.

You might be familiar with Drought Monitor maps that appear on The Weather Channel and weather.com. The Drought Monitor is a great initiative and set of products, however a significant limitation for historical perspective is that the maps and data that we have become so accustomed to and reliant upon exist only back to 2000.

The Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI), one of the inputs to the Drought Monitor product, is available back more than a century.

It focuses on long-term water levels rather than short-term moisture (though is at least partly also reflective of the latter).

The map plots below represent, as best as I can tell, a reasonable apples-to-apples comparison between the current drought and that during the peak of the Dust Bowl, in particular 1936, when 14 states set record high temperatures that still stand. (There were other factors that made the Dust Bowl what it was; here I'm referring specifically to meteorological and hydrological ones.)

These are maps for June since that's the latest month for which one is available for in 2011, and there haven't been any huge changes during the first couple weeks of July.

You can see the extraordinary dichotomy of extreme wet/dry that exists in such close juxtaposition to each other this spring & summer in the U.S., as well as the much greater expanse of drought in the mid-1930s. That helped boost temps in many states to values that have not been exceeded since.

Although the current drought is not as expansive, by this measure the driest categories are actually more prevalent than in June 1936. [July 17 addendum: A 9-month lack of precipitation in Midland shattered the previous record.]

The combination of expanse and severity stands out more in 1934. In both of those 1930s Junes, the focus was farther north than in 2011.

[PDSI images source: NOAA/ESRL Physical Sciences Division.]

What happened in the 1930s and other decades reinforces that there have always been extremes in weather, and there is always natural variability at play. What's changing now is the nature of those extremes, and also what's important is the context.

This time, the extreme drought, heat, and wildfires are occurring along with U.S. extremes this year in rainfall, snowfall, flooding, and tornadoes, and many other stunning temperature and precipitation extremes elsewhere in the world in recent years as well as, as I posted on my TWC Facebook "fan" page, record-shattering 500 millibar heights in high latitudes. And all of this is happening while there's an alarming drop in the amount of Arctic sea ice.

The nature and context of the extremes is the difference between the 1930s and now.

[Source: Polar Science Center; click on image for full-sized version.]

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Stubborn drought maintains grip on lower 48 states

Seth Perlman AP

Central Illinois farmers harvest their soybean crops on Sunday in Farmingdale, Ill. With the U.S. enduring its worst drought in decades, corn and soybean prices have soared this summer.

Seth Perlman AP

Central Illinois farmers harvest their soybean crops on Sunday in Farmingdale, Ill. With the U.S. enduring its worst drought in decades, corn and soybean prices have soared this summer.

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- The nation's worst drought in decades consumed a larger portion of the lower 48 states last week with the Midwest corn harvest in full swing, according to the latest update by a drought-tracking consortium released Thursday.

The U.S. Drought Monitor's new map shows 65.5 percent of the contiguous U.S. experiencing some form of drought as of Tuesday, creeping up from 64.8 percent a week earlier. The portion of the U.S. in extreme or exceptional drought â?? the two worst classifications â?? rose three-quarters of a percentage point to 21.5 percent.

The latest update did not reflect storms that pounded portions of Missouri and Illinois this week, in some areas dumping as much as 7 inches of rain that growers embrace as potentially beneficial to soybean crops still in the fields. Farmers also welcome moisture in the fall and snow in the winter that softens the soil and provides needed saturation for the next planting season.

Storms were expected in portions of the nation's midsection into the weekend, with some states needing the rain more than others.

The latest map released by the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln showed that the area of Iowa, the nation's biggest corn producer, deemed to be in exceptional drought rose from 2.4 percent last week to 2.5 percent. The area of land subject to that most severe classification increased 2.3 percentage points in Nebraska to 73.25 percent, while conditions in Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana did not change.

Over the next few days, "unfortunately little if any rain is expected to fall across the hard-hit drought areas in the eastern Dakotas, eastern Nebraska and the Upper Mississippi Valley/Upper Great Lakes region," Anthony Artusa of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center wrote in Thursday's update.

The forecast rain will have no impact on the already-matured corn crop currently being harvested.

As of Monday, 39 percent of that crop had been brought in from the fields â?? three times more than by this date in the previous five years due to early planting, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported. More than 54 percent of the corn crop in Illinois has been harvested, while Iowa has harvested 37 percent and Missouri 80 percent.

About 51 percent of the U.S. corn crop is classified as being in poor or very poor shape, essentially unchanged from a week earlier, the USDA said. A year ago, 20 percent of corn in the fields was listed that way.

Twenty-two percent of the U.S. soybean crops have been harvested, with 34 percent considered poor or very poor, the USDA said.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.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@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Hydropower supply in Midwest, Plains ample despite drought

The drought worsened this week in the Midwest and the Plains, but the region's hydroelectric power has not diminished because abundant 2011 rain and snow filled reservoirs.

By Nati Harnik, AP

Dried corn stalks in a field in Yutan, Neb., on July 31.

By Nati Harnik, AP

Dried corn stalks in a field in Yutan, Neb., on July 31.

Nearly a quarter of the U.S. is enduring "extreme" to "exceptional" drought, according to the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor released Thursday by the National Drought Mitigation Center. That's the highest percentage in those categories since record-keeping began in 2000. The entire states of Arizona, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Colorado are in drought.

But hydroelectric power generated by six big dams on the Missouri River in the Dakotas and Montana was 12% above normal, providing enough electricity in July to power 90,000 homes for a year, says Mike Swenson, Missouri River power production team leader for the U.S. Corps of Engineers in Omaha.

The corps increased flow out of the dams to maintain enough water for navigation on the river from Gavins Point Dam in South Dakota to where the Missouri joins the Mississippi River at St. Louis, and the higher flows led to increased power production, he says.

"If it continues to be dry like this into the fall, then once we get into the next year, we will start to see some reductions," he says.

Buck Feist, a spokesman for the Bureau of Reclamation's Great Plains regional office, which oversees 79 reservoirs and 20 hydroelectric plants in nine states from Texas to Canada, says "reservoirs are working pretty much as they were designed — to store water to see you through these drought areas."

Overall demand for U.S. electricity did not hit an all-time high in July, despite temperatures that made it the hottest month on record in the USA. That's largely because of conservation practices and a soft economy, Edison Electric Institute spokesman Jim Owen says.

"Power demands are always higher in the summer when it is hot," he says, but "demand has been a little bit soft overall for the last couple of years for one basic, fundamental reason: Even though the economy has improved a little bit, it is still a little soft around the edges."

Peak demand so far in 2012 for the nine states that are all or partially served by the Little Rock-based Southwest Power Pool (SPP) was 53,690 megawatts on July 31, more than 1,000 megawatts below the Aug 2, 2011, peak.

SPP spokesman Pete Hoelscher says that power company officials are closely monitoring river levels for hydropower impact. If the heat persists, he says, demand for power could surge later this month when schools begin classes.

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Report: Drought worsens in key farm states

ST. LOUIS – The latest U.S. drought map shows that excessively parched conditions continue to worsen in the Plains states that are key producers of corn and soybean crops.

By Danny Johnston, AP

Dry ears of corn and plant material lie in a field near Plumerville, Ark., last week.

By Danny Johnston, AP

Dry ears of corn and plant material lie in a field near Plumerville, Ark., last week.

The weekly U.S. Drought Monitor map released Thursday shows that the amount of the contiguous U.S. mired in drought conditions dropped a little more than 1 percentage point, to 62.46 percent.

But the expanse still gripped by extreme or exceptional drought rose nearly 2 percentage points to 24.14 percent.

This is the highest percentage of the U.S. in extreme to exceptional drought since Drought Monitor records began in 2000.

The entire states of Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Colorado are now in a drought.

The nation's biggest corn and soybean producer, Iowa, is still grappling with the drought. The amount of that state in extreme or exceptional drought more than doubled, rising from 30.74 percent last week to 69.14 percent as of Tuesday.

Overall, across the Midwest, reports of water-related impacts are ticking upward as mandatory restrictions continue to ramp upward around the region, the monitor reports.

"As the drought continues, this will undoubtedly become a more prevalent issue as the agricultural season passes and attention turns to next year's crops or herds," climatologist Mark Svoboda of the National Drought Mitigation Center wrote in the monitor.

Contributing: Doyle Rice, USA TODAY

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.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@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Drought, dry summer mean more encounters with hungry bears

OLD FORGE, N.Y. – With their normal summer diet of greens and berries shriveled by summer heat or drought in many spots nationwide, hungry bears are rummaging through garbage, ripping through screens and crawling into cars in search of sustenance.

Handout via AP

In this May 9 photo provided by Donna Wiltsie, a bear searches a porch for food in Catskill, N.Y.

Handout via AP

In this May 9 photo provided by Donna Wiltsie, a bear searches a porch for food in Catskill, N.Y.

In the Adirondack Mountain village of Old Forge in northern New York state, a black bear clawed through the wall of a candy store on Main Street last week; another one locked itself in a minivan and shredded the interior in a frantic struggle to escape, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

"We've been here 17 years and never had a problem with bears," said Roslyn Starer, who runs the Candy Cottage in Old Forge with her son, Larry. "But it's been so dry the normal foods in the woods just aren't growing. So they're coming into town."

Starer came to the shop one morning to find a bear had ripped a big hole in the wall. "If it had gone much further it would have gotten into the shop, and the damage would have been devastating," she said.

This summer's bear troubles aren't isolated to New York. In eastern Kentucky, the U.S. Forest Service closed two campgrounds for a weekend at the end of July because of bears raiding picnic baskets and coolers. Biologists blamed the drought-related berry shortage.

In Colorado, where drought has dried up the chokecherries and serviceberries bears rely on, a bear and three cubs broke into more than a dozen cars in Aspen looking for food in June.

A surveillance camera in a candy store in Estes Park, Colo., showed a bear making seven trips inside for candy in 15 minutes. A bear that broke into occupied homes there last month was put down because it posed a danger to people, one official said, noting the drought has made the intelligent animals even more resourceful in finding food.

Weather-related bear problems are nothing new, as natural food supplies vary from year to year depending on rainfall and other factors. But this summer has been a particularly busy one, wildlife biologists in New York say.

"This has been an interesting year for bears, especially in the Catskills," said Jeremy Hurst, a big game biologist with the New York state Department of Environmental Conservation, referring to the mountain range north of New York City. "In multiple communities, bears have gotten into people's homes, in some cases even when people were at home. Half a dozen to a dozen bears have been euthanized. More have been trapped and relocated."

While property has been damaged by foraging bears, no human injuries have been reported in New York this year.

In the Catskills last month, there were three times as many serious bear issues such as home and vehicle break-ins as there were in the same period last year, Hurst said.

"Typically, complaints of bear damage peak in late spring, but this year, the frequency of bear complaints picked up strongly with the drought in July," he said.

The Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University reported Tuesday that so far, 2012 has been the hottest year on record for the 12-state region. While conditions in the Northeast weren't as dry as some parts of the country, there has been moderate drought in parts of upstate New York.

Bears typically turn to hard foods such as acorns and beechnuts in the fall to bulk up for winter. Paul Curtis, a wildlife specialist with the Cornell Cooperative Extension and associate professor at Cornell University, said a cold snap in April that damaged a lot of fruit tree buds also may have affected acorns and other wild nuts. That could mean trouble for corn farmers, with bears fattening up in their fields, Curtis said.

In Vermont, Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist Forrest Hammond said food scarcity due to the dry summer was contributing to bear complaints. The department has recommended that farmers bring in their corn crops as soon as possible.

"The farmers are going to have a tougher time with bears," Hammond said.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.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@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Snow drought now targeting farmers

The dearth of snow that set back Colorado's ski areas this winter is now taking its toll on farmers, KUSA-TV reports.

It could cost farmers millions of dollars and translate to higher prices for consumers.

Snow runoff traditionally fills up the ditches and ponds that farmers tap to irrigate crops. Not this year. The "terrible year" for ski resorts is translating to a lack of surface water for farmers who say their options for water are limited.

"It's a huge issue. I consider water more valuable than gold," Weld County farmer Glen Fritzler tells KUSA. "We can't survive without it."

Fritzler says his only option is well water, which has not been plentiful since the 2002 drought. "We cannot operate our wells like we have in the past or like we need to to grow out produce," Fritzler says.

State Rep. Randy Fischer has sponsored a bill for a study to determine whether the use of well water by Weld County farmers would adversely affect others who depend on the supply. Fischer tells KUSA that if nothing is done with the bill during today's legislative session, it will likely die.

That means there won't be much hope for farmers. Fitzler says the cost of Colorado produce will likely go up and the cost to farmers could be in the millions.

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Life in drought: Parched Texas town seeks emergency fix (Reuters)

ROBERT LEE, Texas (Reuters) – No one drinks the tap water, which is unbearably briny as the lake dries up.

After one of the hottest summers on record, the lake that is the lone water supply and main recreational draw in this tiny West Texas town is more than 99 percent empty. Robert Lee, which is a two-hour drive east of Midland, has received only about six inches of rainfall this year, half the normal amount.

It is the worst water stitch the town has been in at least since the lake, E.V. Spence Reservoir, was created in the 1960s by damming a portion of the Colorado River.

More water is on the way, but it will only be enough to meet the basic needs of the town of 1,049 and will come at the expense of yet another sizable water rate increase.

Residents are looking forward to improved palatability and a more stable supply because Spence -- which is usually 21 times the size of the entire area of Robert Lee, but now not much bigger than a pond -- withers away.

"It tastes ugly and it stinks," said Delfino Navarro, a mechanic and handyman at a local car dealership, who stood on his browning front lawn on a recent afternoon with a bottle of water in hand. "You can't drink that water or you'll get sick."

Navarro, who has lived in Robert Lee for more than 30 years, said he does not have the means to skip town but he knows of people who are planning to leave or who have left.

After the driest year in state recorded history, most Texas municipalities still have plenty, if less, water. But the plight of Robert Lee has become a reminder of the havoc an extreme or prolonged drought can wreak, as well as how dependent many towns are on rainfall for drinking water and how precarious it is to maintain a healthy supply without it.

"I grew up here and we've always had water situations," said Robert Lee Mayor John Jacobs, 65. "You live in the desert, you're going to be short of water at times and always it would rain and you would get out of it."

Like other West Texas towns, many of which are dependent on surface water supplies that evaporate at a startling rate in hot, dry conditions, Robert Lee has seen its water supply fluctuate over the decades as droughts have come and gone.

"Spence seemed to be a limitless supply," said Kyle Long, who has lived in Robert Lee for more than 30 years. "Just goes to show you that drought can do a lot of things."

The town has suffered from some form of water restrictions for more than two years. Just before summer began, it banned all outdoor water use and asked residents to cut usage.

The lake's only remaining marina shut down this spring. All the boat ramps now lead to dry land -- a cracked-brown moonscape where a few dozen feet of water once stood. The steady stream of out-of-town lake-goers, many who still own upscale homes on the periphery of the reservoir, has dwindled, creating a lag on the town's sales tax revenue.

Herds of feral hogs are beginning to encroach on the lake, which sits a few miles west of town, as all surrounding streams have dried up and there are few people to scare them away. Area ranchers are selling off their herds of cattle. The only thriving grass in town is at the golf course, which uses treated wastewater to irrigate its greens.

The town is planning to build a 12-mile emergency pipeline to the neighboring town of Bronte, which has a healthier reservoir and several wells that produce decent quality water.

But the project is hanging in the balance as the town waits to see whether it will receive millions in financial assistance from the state to cover the bulk of a $9 million project that also includes extensive improvements to the municipal water treatment plant.

The Texas Water Development Board, the state's water planning agency, has until January to approve Robert Lee's application.

Jacobs said the city should have enough water to last through at least January without any rain. But the pipeline project is expected to take 60 days to complete, so he hopes the application is approved before then.

"It's got to come through," Jacobs said of the loan.

Jacobs said the project is only a bare-bones fix. The town also needs to continue searching for the closest and cleanest source of underground water, he said.

Robert Lee is perhaps the most water-strapped municipality in the state. But the situation is not much better elsewhere, mainly in small towns with less diverse or plentiful sources of water and little money in the bank to get new ones.

San Angelo, a town of 93,000, located 30 miles south of Robert Lee, has 22 months of water left. Its main supply, O.H. Ivie Reservoir, which it shares with Midland and Abilene, could go dry by the end of next year if drought persists.

With grim drought predictions, residents in the region are worried. State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon has said Texas will likely be stuck in the holds of drought for another year or longer as La Nina, a periodic weather pattern that causes abnormally dry winters in Texas, has returned.

Ben LaRue, assistant manager at Allsup's, one of two convenience stores in Robert Lee, said if the drought persists, he worries what will happen to local business next year.

Then, LaRue said, "it's really going to hit home."

(Editing by Corrie MacLaggan and Greg McCune)

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US forecasters say fall to extend SW drought (AP)

WASHINGTON – Federal weather forecasters say the country can expect more of the same weather for this fall, especially for drought-struck Texas and Oklahoma. And they urge coastal regions to be ready for a hurricane.

The three-month weather prediction sees no relief from the record Southwest drought. It also predicts warmer than normal weather for a wide swath of the country from Maine to Arizona. Only the Southeast, Northwest and California will likely be spared. That's because forecasters a La Nina system to keep rain away.

Climate Prediction Center operations chief Ed O'Lenic also says a high pressure system that has kept tropical storms away from the East has moved, making a U.S. hurricane strike more possible. The last hurricane to strike the U.S. was in 2008.

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Weather Emergency Plagues Texas: Heat, Drought, and Rolling Blackouts (ContributorNetwork)

Hot weather has plunged Texas into a weather emergency. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas says the state broke its peak usage record Thursday, consuming 60,157 megawatts of power. The previous record of 57,606 megawatts was set in 2000.

The potential for rolling blackouts looms, and Texas utilities are encouraging residents to turn off all unnecessary appliances to minimize the necessity of implementing rolling blackouts. Utilities use rolling blackouts when electricity usage skyrockets to avert more serious power outages. Thursday, utilities avoided imposing the unpopular rolling blackouts on the general public by ordering several large industries on the Gulf Coast to turn off their power. The industrial users selected for turn-off volunteered to be called upon for shutdowns in emergencies in exchange for lowered rates.

When rolling blackouts are implemented, waves of consumers usually lose power for 15 to 45 minutes each. ERCOT has yet to use its rolling outage authority during a heat wave. When it last used its authority during a spate of frigid weather in February, residents were not happy with the sudden disruption. Utilities said at that time they could not provide advance warning of specific customers to be targeted with the blackouts, leaving customers to fend with the uncertainty, including sudden school closings.

ERCOT continues to ask citizens to conserve energy as temperatures and electricity demand remain dangerously high. The Texas grid gave some of its power generators a break Friday, causing a loss of 4,000 to 5,000 megawatts. ERCOT spokesperson Dottie Roark compared what's happening with the electric generation units to a car overheating. She told the Texas Tribune that after sustained use they need to be taken offline for a break to prevent them from overheating and tripping offline.

Texas has been withering this summer under the worst heat experienced since the state began keeping records in 1895. In both June and July, temperature broke the records for average highs. Not only that, state residents are contending with a drought that's shaping up to be the driest year since 1956. Texas needs four-and-a-half inches of rain in August and September to avoid setting a drought record.

Climatologists are split on whether Texas may face more drought this winter with La Ni±a influences or a return to normal rainfall levels. Combination of drought conditions and high temperatures has decimated the state's agriculture and threatened its wildlife- most of its wildlife, anyway.

There is one wildlife constituency getting some respite due to sustained triple digit temperatures in Texas. The heat drove the state's feral hogs into hiding. Those hogs would undoubtedly be relieved to learn that their exodus caused a reality television show in which they were to be gunned down from helicopters to be postponed.

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Texas cattle ranchers feel burn of record drought (AFP)

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (AFP) – A record drought is forcing Texas cattle ranchers to send their cows to slaughter because it's too costly to keep buying feed for herds finding little forage in parched pastures.

"If I knew it would rain in the next two months, we'd buy hay or feed and carry these cows on," said Pete Bonds, who raises about 7,000 cows on his nearly 4,000-acre (1,600-hectare) ranch near Fort Worth.

The problem for ranchers like Bonds is that "only God knows when it's going to rain."

And if conditions don't improve in the next few weeks, he may have to cull as many as 1,000 cows from his herd.

Dry spells are nothing new to Texas cattlemen, the bulk of whom operate ranches that have been in their families for generations.

It's a good life for them, and for the cattle.

Unlike the cramped conditions of "factory" farms elsewhere in the country, most Texas cattle roam free on sprawling ranches, eating brush and grasses and drinking from natural creeks and man-made ponds.

But the first six months of this year have been the driest since records began to be kept in 1895.

Pastures are filled with patches of dry dirt. The grasses that are still alive crackle under foot.

And the drought which began in October has sparked one of the worst wildfire seasons on record.

More than 13,000 wildfires have burned more than 3.2 million acres in Texas where the situation has become so bad that many counties even banned Independence Day fireworks.

"Ranchers have experienced wildfires, long term drought, severe flooding, exceptionally cold winters and high feed costs for several years," said Bill Hyman, executive director of the Independent Cattlemen's Association of Texas.

Their endurance is starting to wear thin, he said and they are "exiting the industry in large numbers due to losses."

"In Texas, you can't find anyone in agriculture who's not suffering," added Gene Hall, a spokesperson of the Texas Farm Bureau.

"The wheat crop is already toast, corn is in serious trouble and the cattle situation is very bad."

One of the broadest impacts has been on cotton, because Texas accounts for nearly half of the US crop.

"Cotton conditions have never been lower than they are right now for any time in the growing season," said Brad Rippey, a meteorologist with the US Department of Agriculture.

"It's been so hot that even irrigation in some cases is not helping the situation because of the intense heat and the low humidity. So cotton is in big trouble early in the year and it would take a major weather pattern change, which does not appear to be on the horizon," to save the crop.

Texas producers have ginned, or treated, between 4.5 and 8 million bales of cotton in the past eight years. This year, they're forecast to get just 2.5 million bales, said Kelley Green of the Texas Cotton Ginners Association.

Chuck Real has been forced to tap into stockpiles of hay that he hasn't planned on using until the winter to feel his herd of 100 cows near San Antonio.

"The Good Lord was very good to us and let us put up a lot of hay last year in the spring of 2010. That was the last time it really rained," he told AFP.

He had been hoping to hang onto his cows until they reached the ideal slaughter weight of 500 to 600 pounds. But it's likely he's going to end up having to cut his losses because it's too costly to buy feed.

"We'll have to sell them at 400 pounds because we're running out of grass," Real said.

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Floods to north, but drought spreads in South (Reuters)

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) – Sweltering summer heat and a persistent lack of rain have deepened an historic drought gripping Texas and surrounding southern states.

And despite heavy rains and flooding to the north, there is little relief in sight for the South, according to a report issued Thursday by U.S. climatologists.

The "Drought Monitor" report released Thursday from a consortium of national climate experts said that over the last week, the worst level of drought, called "exceptional drought," expanded to cover more than 70 percent of Texas.

And 91 percent of the Lone Star State suffers from either exceptional drought or the second-worst category, "extreme" drought.

"We've had extraordinarily high temperatures and really high wind. It is still bad," said Don Conlee, acting state climatologist for Texas.

Arizona likewise has more than 70 percent of its land in extreme and exceptional drought, up from 68 percent. Louisiana saw exceptional drought spread to 65 percent from 28 percent in the week, while Oklahoma saw it spread to a third of its land from a tenth.

Drought has ravaged the region, sparking thousands of wildfires, drying up grazing land for cattle, and ruining thousands of acres of wheat and other crops.

Texas experienced its driest spring on record with only a fraction of the rainfall typically seen.

Overall, this is third-worst drought in Texas history up to this point of the year, Conlee said.

There was light precipitation over central and eastern Texas on Wednesday, which gave firefighters some relief in battling a devastating wildfire there that has displaced 1,800 people and destroyed dozens of homes. One fire that erupted Sunday outside Houston has scorched more than 5,200 acres.

But western Texas and Arizona remain dry, and above-normal temperatures in the forecast for the region only add to the misery.

Drought in the South sees its opposite extreme in the North, severe flooding.

This week floodwaters forced the evacuation of thousands of residents in North Dakota as heavy rains swelled waterways from Montana through Missouri.

And more rain is expected over the next several days through the Missouri River basin, according to forecasters.

(Editing by John Picinich)

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