S. Plains Drought Could Extend Into Next Year; 2001 Likely As Driest Year Ever In TX

[hatrack]

Record-breaking triple-digit temperatures were prolonging a devastating drought that has been baking the South and the dry spell could extend into next year and beyond, climate experts said on Thursday.

"Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse... we are seeing expansion of this drought. This drought will continue to persist and likely intensify," said climatologist Mark Svoboda, with the University of Nebraska's National Drought Mitigation Center. The drought is edging its way to the east even as it intensifies in the southern states, according to a weekly report released Thursday by a consortium of state and federal climatologists dubbed the U.S. Drought Monitor.

EDIT

Texas has been the hardest hit, and 2011 was expected to be the driest calendar year since records were first kept in the late 19th century. In that key agricultural state, levels of extreme and exceptional drought totaled 95.04 percent of area this week, up from 94.42 percent a week ago, the Drought Monitor reported. The parched soils and rangeland and lack of rainfall have decimated crops, left livestock with little to eat or drink and sparked wildfires across thousands of acres. Texas officials peg damages at more than $5 billion.

Oklahoma was also suffering, with extreme an exceptional levels of drought now across 85.37 percent of the state. And nearly a third of Kansas is in extreme or exceptional drought, according to the Drought Monitor. Wheat farmers are questioning whether or not to even try to plant their new crop this autumn with soils lacking moisture the plants need to grow.

EDIT

http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/63145

[NickB79]

1. Texans are going to become the new Okies

Perhaps they'll all come up here to the Great Lakes region rather than California this time?

[CJvR]

2. Denmark...

...had ther second wettest summer since 1876.