Drought!

BenBurch said:
The article I just posted mentions the 1988 drought, since many of you were not alive yet in 1988, it needs some mention. Read the wiki on it; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_North_American_drought

In the wiki article it is called the costliest natural disaster in US history.

I think we may see that record fall.
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While I think this drought is bad, I do remember 88, and we had no rain at all. Now whether the rain will come in time to help with pollination and filling of maize remains to be seen. (We had some decent storms in central Illinois today)

'88 was exceptionally bad, for the Midwest. Other parts of the world this may be worse. This one is bad but hopefully moderating.

Seems the farm bureau disagrees, I stand corrected, unless we get a bunch of rain at the end of next week:

http://khmoradio.com/il-farm-bureau-drought-stats/
 
Groundbreaking research has shown how climate change significantly increased the odds of some recent extreme weather events.

This latest science is featured in a companion piece to The State of the Climate in 2011 report, which is led by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the US and is published as part of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS).

The new report, Explaining Extreme Events of 2011 from a Climate Perspective, includes contributions from the Met Office and many other research institutions from around the world. For the first time it includes so-called 'climate attribution studies', looking at six key weather events shortly after they have happened
 
Years ago, I remember reading articles in Popular Science about "mega-engineering" projects that had been floated; including tapping the Great Lakes to irrigate the Western states and much more extensive irrigation networks branching out of the Mississippi...

I imagine the big obstacles to such plans would be cost, environmental impact, and politics, but if conditions like this continue for a few years I wonder if they'll be pushed a bit more?
 
Bikewer said:
Years ago, I remember reading articles in Popular Science about "mega-engineering" projects that had been floated; including tapping the Great Lakes to irrigate the Western states and much more extensive irrigation networks branching out of the Mississippi...

I imagine the big obstacles to such plans would be cost, environmental impact, and politics, but if conditions like this continue for a few years I wonder if they'll be pushed a bit more?
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That and the fact that the Great Lakes don't replenish as fas as you might imagine they do.

I have a picture of me and my dogs on a nice wide sandy dog beach in Chicago.

This beach didn't exist 20 years ago; The lake level is dropping. This area was a former boat launching ramp, but the ramp is high and dry now.
 
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BenBurch said:
That and the fact that the Great Lakes don't replenish as fas as you might imagine they do.

I have a picture of me and my dogs on a nice wide sandy dog beach in Chicago.

This beach didn't exist 20 years ago; The lake level is dropping. This area was a former boat launching ramp, but the ramp is high and dry now.
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Lake Michigan/Huron (they're actually one big lake not 2) water levels have fluctuated several meters since records have been kept. The record high level was in 1986 (177.39 meters), perhaps your 20 year old memory was actually 26 years old? I remember that year, Sheridan Road was washed over by the waves in parts and beachside high-rises had their basements flooded.

The lowest level was recorded in 1964 (175.78 meters). We're currently at 176.04 meters, half a meter below the long term average but well within the normal range.

Source.

eta:
At least eight streets on Chicago`s Far North Side were flooded Monday between the lakefront and Sheridan Road, and high waves crashed against the walls of high-rises in what one longtime resident said was ``the worst flooding we`ve had in the history of Sheridan Road.``

In an effort to stem the waves, city workers on Monday placed 50 ``Jersey blocks``--concrete highway dividers--along streets and alleys that end at the lakefront. The city also delivered 2,300 sandbags to inundated locations in the area.
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Chicago Tribune article from 1986.
 
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Bikewer said:
Years ago, I remember reading articles in Popular Science about "mega-engineering" projects that had been floated; including tapping the Great Lakes to irrigate the Western states and much more extensive irrigation networks branching out of the Mississippi...

I imagine the big obstacles to such plans would be cost, environmental impact, and politics, but if conditions like this continue for a few years I wonder if they'll be pushed a bit more?
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So long as it was only the States' portion of the Lakes that was being drained, I'd be fine with it. :) Might even be able to refloat the Edumud Fitzgerald after a few years of that.
 
JeanFromBNA said:
The ENSO has switched pretty quickly from La Nina to El Nino conditions. Usually there's a couple of months during which it is called "ENSO neutral." If you look at the graphic images toward the bottom of the page for temperature and precipitation comparisons for previous El Nino and La Nina events in the US, it suggests drought relief in the South and Midwest. On the other hand, the northwest is gonna bake. http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/enso.different.html
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How odd, it's still very wet in Australia, and El Nino means drought over here.
 
We've had healthy amounts of rain here in SW Texas over the past week. This is in stark contrast to last year when we had the worst drought on record.
 
fitzgibbon said:
So long as it was only the States' portion of the Lakes that was being drained, I'd be fine with it. :) Might even be able to refloat the Edumud Fitzgerald after a few years of that.
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Don't worry, we'll only pump on our side of the border.
 
Tony said:
We've had healthy amounts of rain here in SW Texas over the past week. This is in stark contrast to last year when we had the worst drought on record.
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Yea, Down here in the Rio Grande Valley this spring and summer is the wettest i remember it ever being except for back in the 80's.

The temperatures have been exceedingly sweltering though. We've had three straight weeks of 100+ temperatures.
 
We had some good rain last night in the northern 20% of Illinois, but it seems too late;

http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/07/19/markets-grains-idINL4E8IJ1VL20120719

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U.S. soybeans rose to a record high on Thursday, while front-month corn scaled an all-time high as weather maps showed no sign of an end to a drought that has damaged U.S. crops and provoked concern about food supplies.

Wheat tracked corn higher, with spot wheat firming to a 4-year high.

Chicago Board Of Trade August soybeans rose 1.71 percent to $17.12-1/4 a bushel, a record high for the contract, while November soybeans, the most actively traded contract, rose 1.42 percent to $16.43 a bushel.

"For the third consecutive year, weather has dashed hopes for a strong U.S. corn and soy crop. With drought continuing to broaden across the U.S. cornbelt, the market is growing to appreciate that yields should register well-below trend," Morgan Stanley said in a report on Thursday "Reduced supply will necessitate higher prices, in our view, to bring about needed demand rationing, to preserve already record or near-record tight inventories."
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The weather patterns for the last, oh, 2 - 3 weeks here have been perfectly normal summer weather. Spotty rains, with every place getting a tenth or two a couple times a week. Some days we get it, some days we miss. Had a good 4 hr rainfall this morning. So the last 3 weeks haven't been a drought.

The problem is that we are still 8 inches behind from the previous two months, and the rain we are getting now is too late to save the crops, which are all pretty much done growing.
 
pgwenthold said:
The weather patterns for the last, oh, 2 - 3 weeks here have been perfectly normal summer weather. Spotty rains, with every place getting a tenth or two a couple times a week. Some days we get it, some days we miss. Had a good 4 hr rainfall this morning. So the last 3 weeks haven't been a drought.

The problem is that we are still 8 inches behind from the previous two months, and the rain we are getting now is too late to save the crops, which are all pretty much done growing.
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Worse would be getting all 8 inches in a short time.
 
BenBurch said:
Worse would be getting all 8 inches in a short time.
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Oh, absolutely. 8 inches of rain in a very short time would be doubly disastrous.

And as I noted, even if we caught up again in rainfall, it's way too late for most of the crops.

But I think my point was that, even though we are way behind in the rainfall, we currently aren't experience drought weather patterns. It's just that the damage is already done.
 
Hit 100 F in my back yard today. Overcast all week but no significant rain, just ten-minute showers. When it does rain I swear I can hear this giant sucking sound and then it all disappears...

I noticed that the ranchers are starting to pull cattle from some of the upper rangelands, which are already hammered. Tanks are dry, they're watering from trucks. Going to be beef jerky on the hoof soon...
 
Tiktaalik said:
Hit 100 F in my back yard today. Overcast all week but no significant rain, just ten-minute showers.
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But that is pretty normal summer weather, isn't it?

The problem is not that you are only having occasional ten minute showers now. The problem was the 8 week stretch where we didn't even have that.

If we had been having occasional ten minute showers throughout the months of May and June, things we would be just fine. The problem is we weren't even getting that.
 
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