Nearly 2/3 Of Contiguous US In Drought Or Abnormally Dry - USA Today

[hatrack]

EDIT

Several cities in the West are close to setting records today for the warmest July. Boise is on track to break a 133-year-old record for its warmest July ever. Reno is one-tenth of a degree below its July record set in 2005. The Nevada city has not had any rain in eight weeks.

Nearly two-thirds of the contiguous USA is abnormally dry or in drought, according to the national Drought Monitor.

Despite recent showers in the Southeast, much of that region remains extraordinarily dry. The worst-hit area in the USA includes most of Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia. Topsoil moisture, critical for crops, is poor in half of Georgia, two-thirds of the Carolinas and Alabama and three-fourths of Tennessee.

Low flows on the Tennessee, Ohio and Cumberland rivers are forcing barge operators to lighten loads. "We're now into the severe-drought category," says Jodi Kormanik-Sonterre of the Army Corps of Engineers in St. Paul. She says all six reservoirs at the Mississippi's headwaters "are near record lows, approaching the 1988 drought level." Below Coon Rapids Dam a few miles upstream from Minneapolis, "I think I could walk across it because of how low it is right now."

EDIT

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20070731/a_hotdry31.art.htm

[phantom power]

1. And that third in the middle is experiencing crop-loss from *flooding*.

[BOSSHOG]

2. We are in pretty good shape this year

way down in South Mississippi (that tiny little white blob near the Louisiana line.) We've received quite a bit of rain the past six weeks; a nice rain just about every afternoon coming right off the gulf.

[phantom power]

3. Is that white blob agricultural?

[BOSSHOG]

4. Very rural area

I think the biggest crop comes from Meth labs.

[ben_meyers]

5. That map is from a week ago

It has rained here in Phoenix most days for the last 2 weeks! Turn it off now, we're good to go.

[phantom power]

6. I doubt that. We're still behind our historic annual average.

[ben_meyers]

9. It's pouring again as I type

I crossed the salt today on Alma School and I can't remember it flowing like that in the summer.

[hatrack]

7. Well, one week ago - it updates on Thursdays.

So I guess you actually DID get a monsoon season this year?

[fed-up]

8. my farmer bf just connected his 2 wells-the farm one was silty/sandy/low nt