Posted on 08/31/2020 9:10:40 AM PDT by Roman_War_Criminal
Much of the southwestern portion of the United States has been gripped by a drought that never seems to end, and there is a tremendous amount of concern that patterns that we witnessed back during the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s may be starting to repeat. In a previous article, I discussed the extreme heat that we have been seeing in the region lately. Phoenix has never had more days in a year when the high temperature has hit at least 115 degrees, and other southwestern cities have been smashing records as well. At the same time, precipitation levels have been very low, and the combination of these two factors is starting to cause some major problems
A couple of weeks ago, NASA posted an article on their official website about the horrible drought conditions that we are now witnessing
As the United States moves into the last weeks of climatological summer, one-third of the country is experiencing at least a moderate level of drought. Much of the West is approaching severe drought, and New England has been unusually dry and hot. An estimated 53 million people are living in drought-affected areas.
Since NASA posted that article, things have gotten even worse. If you go to the U.S. Drought Monitor website, you will instantly see why so many experts are deeply concerned. The latest map shows that nearly the entire southwestern quadrant of the country is now gripped by either severe or extreme drought. Needless to say, this is not good news at all for farmers and ranchers in the region.
Colorado is one of the states that is being hit the hardest. At this point, more than 93 percent of the entire state is experiencing very serious drought conditions
According to United States Drought Monitor, drought conditions have gotten significantly worse in Colorado in recent days and weeks.
Last week, approximately 72 percent of Colorado was experiencing severe drought conditions or worse. This has now jumped to just over 93 percent.
Because things have been so dry, it is really easy for the wind to pick up dust and start blowing it around, and this summer we have been seeing some really impressive dust storms.
For example, earlier this month two giant dust storms actually converged in the Phoenix area
Two dust storms converged over the greater Phoenix area on Sunday, hours after the city broke another record as a heat wave grips the West.
Thankfully, at this point we still have a long way to go before we return to the nightmarish conditions of the 1930s. The Black Sunday dust storm that so many history books talk about was actually 1,000 miles long, and it traveled at speeds of up to 100 miles an hour
A month later, one of the most severe storms of the era, nicknamed Black Sunday, enveloped the Great Plains. It was 1,000 miles long, contained 300,000 tons of dust, and traveled up to 100 miles per hour. This weather didnt just affect the land: Farm animals choked on dust and suffocated. At least 7,000 people died from dust pneumonia as a result of breathing in the fine particulates, and countless more were driven from their homes and livelihoods by the endless, swirling dirt.
Let us hope that we dont see anything like that any time soon, but scientists are using the term megadrought to describe what the southwestern portion of the country is currently going through
The western United States and parts of northern Mexico have been suffering through drought conditions on and off since the year 2000 and unfortunately it may not let up any time soon. A new study has examined extreme droughts in the region dating back 1,200 years, and found that the current conditions have the makings of a megadrought that could last decades.
In fact, the lead author of that study is actually telling us that the current drought is on the same trajectory as the worst prehistoric droughts
We now have enough observations of current drought and tree-ring records of past drought to say that were on the same trajectory as the worst prehistoric droughts, said study lead author A. Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University, in a statement. This is a drought bigger than what modern society has seen.
Ultimately, the experts dont know how long this new megadrought will last.
It could theoretically end next year, or it could persist for the foreseeable future.
But if it continues to intensify, it is going to become increasingly difficult for farmers and ranchers to make a living in the affected areas.
In addition, supplies of fresh water are going to become increasingly stressed. The once mighty Colorado River is now so overused that it doesnt even run all the way to the ocean anymore, and experts are deeply concerned about the future of the river.
In the end, this megadrought may force dramatic changes in cities all over the region. Sadly, things have already gotten so bad that you can see the impact of the drought everywhere
You see impacts everywhere, in snowpacks, reservoir levels, agriculture, groundwater and tree mortality, said co-author Benjamin Cook, of Columbia Universitys Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory. Droughts are these amazingly disruptive events. Water sits at the foundation of everything.
Those that have been following my work for many years know that I have been watching developments in the southwestern quadrant of the country for many years, and things have really started to escalate here in 2020.
What a crazy year this has been. We are still dealing with a global pandemic, 58 million Americans have filed for unemployment over the past 23 weeks, civil unrest continues to rage in our major cities and major politicians are being chased down the street, and this month we have been hit by one natural disaster after another.
Now a presidential election is rapidly approaching, and many people believe that what we have experienced so far is just the beginning of our problems.
Without a doubt, our world seems to be going absolutely nuts, and that should deeply alarm all of us.
Nobody farms like that any longer, do they? If not—there won’t be ‘another dustbowl’. Drought? Sure. Just nature and cycles.
Comparable two year periods: 1914-15, 1924-25, 1944-45.
famine, drought, pandemic, looks like we’re all gonna die if Trump is reelected.
We just got some showers in the Panhandle here this early morning.
Don’t care if it’s unprecedented or not. It SUCKS. And it’s BAD. And anybody pretending it’s otherwise is DUMB.
Yep, I swear I saw another scare headline over the weekend about the Biblical flood headed for California.
I’ve lived in Texas for 35 years and have survived at least two “Permanent Mega-Droughts.”
I’m in New England, and I’ve lost track of how many “Storm of the Century” scares I’ve been through.
HERE is what Bourke had to say in the book ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK, about the 1870s heat in South Arizona....Whoever transcribed this to on line made many spelling errors.
https://archive.org/stream/ontheborderwithc002470mbp/ontheborderwithc002470mbp_djvu.txt
Chapter 1, page 12.
“The temptations to drink and to gamble were indeed great,
and those who yielded and fell by the way-side numbered many
of the most promising youngsters in the army. Many a brilliant
and noble fellow has succumbed to the ennui and gone down,
wrecking a life full of promise for himself and the service. It
was hard for a man to study night and day with the thermom-
eter rarely under the nineties even in winter at noon, and often
climbing up to and over the 120 notch on the Fahrenheit scale
before the meridian of days between April 1st and October 15th ;”
And this was way before air conditioning and TRUMP could be blamed.
Not good for cactus buyers...
Discover Magazine does a reasonable job of debunking these concerns from Divulgence.net:
https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/tilt-02
We got about an hour of showers in Spokane too, but need more. Good luck to you, my FRiend. Keep up the prayers and rain dances. (Even my cat is doing her kitty rain dance.)
Dust bowl conditions returned to the Western Plains in the mid-1950’s-remembered in the area as the Filthy Fifties.
And we just had the worst hurricane in history, too...right?
I hope you don’t actually believe any of that.
You can see with your own eyes it’s utter bunk.
The red color isn’t even the highest level of drought. There is a browner color for that. Like down by Big Bend.
Ask the Anasazi about coping with the long term drought periods of the U.S. southwest.
That’s cause China’s getting all our rain.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.