Permanently Hotter Summers

[lucky1]

We hoped for warmer winters...no such luck.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/june ... 60611.html

[TerdalFarm]

20 years? Try now. This year is worse than the famous dust bowl of the 1930s as for low rain, low soil moisture and high temps.
If you eat beef or wheat, expect to pay more.

[lucky1]

Yeah, I hear you Erik.
You guys have have blistering weather.
And the fires in Arizona...they sure don't need hot weather and wind.

I think the 20 year reference referred to it being irreversible then.

I'm still ticked off it's not winters that are warmer...wouldn't it be outstanding (to say the least) if we zone 5/6ers were suddenly a zone 8.
That'd be heaven for me and my palms.
But no...it's gotta be summer that's affected.
Around here that's when the bureaucrats are crawling all over you with helicopters, etc. to make sure people don't fill the pool during Stage 3 water restrictions, etc. etc.

So far we're good this year...
Hope it eases for you guys soon.
Barb

[hardyjim]

20 years? Try now. This year is worse than the famous dust bowl of the 1930s as for low rain, low soil moisture and high temps.
If you eat beef or wheat, expect to pay more.

Maybe in moisture Erik but looking at your temps(89 now),nothing
like the 30s when it was relentlessly 100+ day after day-and
then,think of all the dust storms where people couldn't even breath and cattle(etc)died..

If that happened now the GW crowd would be howling like banshees!

I remember looking at the temp records for summer in St.Louis
growing up there as a kid and the 30s basically owned the records-
they have changed quite a bit since then with the heat of the early 80s and 90s
but still own many records.

[TerdalFarm]

At least this part of the state (eastern) has full reservoirs as we got the western edge of the huge rains to the east of us. So, no water restrictions as we prepare to fill the pool (being painted right now).

The WaPo blog past recently got me thinking. Feel free to ignore if it is too darn hot right now to think about....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/cap ... _blog.html

[Paul Ont]

Nice and cool here now after a brutal (for us) 94f here yesterday!

[TerdalFarm]

Paul,
nice!
Jim,
I hope I didn't exaggerate too much. My source as always is the mesonet, the state climate system for farmers.
I was referring to their June 9 press release, pasted below.
I associate the "dust bowl" with the panhandle, and that is drier than the dustbowl; around here it is not.
Western OK has been >100 F daily for a while now, whereas here where the soil is wetter and the air more humid we are merely in the 90s each afternoon.
--Erik



MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ...
June 9, 2011 June 9, 2011 June 9, 2011 June 9, 2011


Drought making a comeback to parts of Oklahoma

In other parts, of course, it never left. In fact, the farther west you go,
the nastier it gets. Exceptional (D4) drought continues in the western half of
the Panhandle and the first tier of western counties. Severe (D2) to extreme
(D3) drought covers much of the remainder of western Oklahoma. Thanks to the
rainless streak of the last couple of weeks and a blast of summer-like heat,
those drought conditions are once again creeping back eastward.

http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20110609/ok_dm.png

First off, let's remember that not much has changed for western Oklahoma. They
had a bit of drought relief when our weather got active again during May. For
the most part, however, they continue to bake and suffer. There are widespread
reports (still) of dry stock ponds, barren landscapes and cattle sell-offs. As
usual, this is better portrayed in pictures than words. Check out the view in
Cimarron County, courtesy of the fine folks from the NRCS office in Boise City.
Whether you're trying to farm, ranch or both, that's a tough landscape.

http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20110609/P6080001.jpg
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20110609/P6080002.jpg
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20110609/P6080003.jpg
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20110609/P6080004.jpg

Let's get to the meat of the problem ... lack of rain and heat. Since our last
active weather pattern in mid-late May (remember those floods, tornadoes and
tornadoes? Yeah, I meant to do that.), the rains have vanished. Take a look at
the total precipitation and percent of normal maps from the Mesonet for May 25
through today (as of 9 am).

http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20110 ... _total.png
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20110 ... n9_pct.png

While those are only for a 16-day period, it happens to have occurred in the
last gasp of our normal rainy season. Around mid-June, the rains tend to head
north for the summer. Of the 120 Mesonet stations, 105 had less than a tenth
of an inch of rain over this time, with 53 stations reporting no rain at all.
In fact, it is the *driest* May 25-June 9 period on record for the state with
a statewide average of 0.07 inches of rain, 2.36 inches below normal (3% of
normal). This period pushed 1934 (0.64 inches) into second place. Again, we
need to quit hanging around those Dust >Bowl years.

Add to that the tremendous heat (relative to early June) the state has
experienced during June thus far and you have the recipe for the development-
persistence-intensification of drought. High temperatures since June 1 are
10 degrees above normal across the state at 95.2 degrees. In western Oklahoma,
the highs are averaging 98-99 degrees.

The result of the heat and the lack of rain is evident when you look at the
soil moisture measurements from the Mesonet. That rain that fell last month is
headed back up into the atmosphere at a rapid rate.

Jun 8 soil moisture: http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20110 ... st.fwi.png
7-day change: http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20110 ... idelta.png

You may wonder how all that rain that fell over the last couple of months went
away so fast. Well, the answer is it wasn't exactly a bounty. It just seemed
that way because we had gotten so little previously. Proof? Check out the
rainfall maps from the past 60 days:

http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20110 ... aystot.png
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20110 ... ayspct.png

Less than 20% of normal to at least 80% of normal through the western two-
thirds of the state -- a tad less impressive than we were led to believe. Go
back any longer period, 90-120-180 days, and you can see why the rain was
welcome, but also why we need more. Here's the look out at the past 180 days:

http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20110 ... aystot.png
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20110 ... ayspct.png

The last 180 days are the 5th driest across the state since 1921 at more than
6 inches below normal. Particular areas of the state are more worse off than
others.

Panhandle: 1st driest -6.90" below normal
N Central: 2nd driest -9.03" below normal
W Central: 1st driest -10.14" below normal
Central: 3rd driest -8.60" below normal
Southwest: 1st driest -8.99" below normal
S Central: 6th driest -7.89" below normal

So yes, the drought is still here, it is still spreading and it is still
intensifying. And a significant number of Oklahomans who earn their living from
agriculture are suffering mightily because of it.

The remedy is simple ... rain. There is a chance over the next few days for
at least a few showers and storms. We'll take it!

Gary McManus
Associate State Climatologist
Oklahoma Climatological Survey
(405) 325-2253
gmcmanus@mesonet.org

[BILL MA]

I'm glad you guy's got in on this heat blast, I can't believe how mild it's been this year. I'm pretty sure it's cooler now at my parents house in Fla now then it was 2 months ago, go figure.

The sun is so intense down there though, if anyone's familiar with tinted car window mine are 20% on my car and I think the house windows down there are 10% or less lets say (limo tint) you can't see inside. Two months ago when I was there it was brighter inside there house then mine here now, by a lot. Looking at the weather there I'd move if I could and grow lipstick palms and all kinds of other crazy stuff. It's not like you can't find shade under the zillion ficus tree's down there.

Erik, I hope you get some rain soon so you don't get a dust bowl going in your yard. Time to start drilling some Deep wells around your property if that's the case.

Bill

[lucky1]

Ah, yes, wouldn't it be wonderful to grow Lipstick Palms.
None of my Cyrtostachys renda seeds came up...damn
I can only imagine Florida's intense sunshine, Bill.

Paul, you've had brutal heat/humidity and some big storms lately.

Erik, let's hope the tornados back off...far too scary so far this year.

Barb

[ttls1]

Well it's not hot everywhere we had the coldest and wettest spring ever recorded here in slc. We have only hit the 80's 3 or 4 times all year. Most miserable start to a year I have ever seen here.

[canadianplant]

Its been weird here as well. Its coolish, but nothing out of the ordinary. The night lows have been really high, even late winter early spring ( even though the highs were a bit below)

Its sad to see the dust bowl, but that what happens when you over fertilize and monocrop. No top soil/no diversity = soil death, which means less water, and hotter more intense summers, and colder winters. Theres nothing shading the soil, and since most people just rip plants out, and not properly fertilize it, nothing is being replaced,........ bingo, dust bowl. It isnt a coincidence that drought followed the "green revolution".

Look at arizona. 300 years ago, it looked NOTHING like now. The whole "desert", was oak/misquite/seguaro forest. Farmers clear cut the forests for food and wood, used so much fertilizer, that they salted the soil, and now, nothing grows properly there.

Even before that, the anasazzi ( I think it was them), lived in that area for a long time. Then all of a sudden, climate change kicked in, no water, no food and they left. THis is becasue they literaly destroyed the entire ecosystem for wood and farming. By the time we got there, it was already "dead" . Now, the seguaro, the symbol of the west, is dying out. It cant reproduce, becsue its seedlings needed the shade and nutrients supplied from the oak/misquite, which also previded homes for birds, who spread the seeds. Now that the seguaro is literaly out in the open, the seedlings cant grow, and lots of the cacti are dying due to no shade on their roots, which means less water.


Not to mention cloud seeding. That is the dumbest thing we could possibly do. Weather systems are too complex to leech water fromt he clouds. Weather is chaos theory, which is cause and effect. You take water for texas, europe has a drought. You cant expect stealing water from clouds ( cause), in such a complex non linear system like weather, and not expect a major effect down the line.

To me its like trying to fix something we broke, and only make it worse trying to fix it.