Posted on 09/16/2002 9:56:42 AM PDT by cogitator
Drought Drains Rivers, Reservoirs
WASHINGTON, DC, September 12, 2002 (ENS) - Continuing drought throughout the western United States has depleted river flows and dried up reservoirs in many areas.
The federal Bureau of Reclamation says that while water continues to be delivered in most areas, the storage levels in many Reclamation reservoirs are well below average.
From the Missouri River westward to the Pacific Ocean, one half of the contiguous United States is now experiencing drought conditions. In the Southwest, dry conditions are expected to continue at least through autumn, with most basins in southern Colorado, southern Utah, Arizona and New Mexico reporting less than 50 percent of average seasonal precipitation.
"The reality of this drought has hit farmers, large and small communities, power users, wildlife, boaters and anglers hard," said John Keys, commissioner of Reclamation.
"Westwide, the Bureau of Reclamation's facilities have proved to be the last and best line of defense against the ongoing drought," Keys continued. "For example this year's runoff into the Colorado River and Lake Powell has been only 14 percent of normal."
The Colorado River Basin is experiencing its third consecutive year of below average runoff, Keys noted. At the end of August, Lake Powell was about 60 percent full with 14.6 million acre-feet of water and Lake Mead was about 67 percent full with 17.2 million acre feet stored, and those levels will continue to drop if the drought stretches on as forecasted.
In New Mexico's Rio Grande Basin, the power plant below El Vado Reservoir - used to supply supplemental electricity to Los Alamos National Laboratories - shut down on August 15 due to lack of water.
Seasonal precipitation amounts were near or above normal in parts of the Pacific Northwest, although several basins were below average, including eastern Oregon at 64 percent. In Idaho, the Boise River system is at 61 percent, the Payette River system is at 88 percent, and the Upper Snake River system is at 32 percent, all relative to 30 year averages.
While eastern Oregon experienced the greatest shortages, many water users in the Idaho basins recognized early that there would be a shortage and implemented conservation measures that allowed them to continue to receive water through this year's growing season.
With the exception of most of Texas and Oklahoma and parts of North Dakota and South Dakota, all of the Great Plains states are suffering from severe to exceptional drought. The entire state of Colorado is experiencing extreme drought.
Natural inflows to Bureau reservoirs in the Klamath and Trinity Basins range from 35 percent to less than 10 percent of normal. Farmers in the Klamath Project have been told they need to reduce demand by 10 percent in order to have enough water to get them through the irrigation season. Those reductions would also allow the resumption of water deliveries to the wildlife refuges in the project.
Next week, the American Water Resources Association (AWRA) will hold its first Water Resources Policy Dialogue, focusing on ways to increase the security of water supplies, sustainable water use and drought management, environmental restoration and watershed wide management. The conference will be held September 17-18, 2002 at the Loews L'Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington, DC.
For more information on the Policy Dialogue visit AWRA's website at: http://www.awra.org/meetings/wrpd2002/index.html
By LEE BOWMAN
Scripps Howard News Service
September 13, 2002
- Not since the Dust Bowl years has the United States been as hot as it was in June through August of this year, federal scientists said Friday. And with drought affecting nearly half the country, the summer resulted in record dry spells for six states.
The average temperature for the 48 contiguous states was 73.9 degrees Fahrenheit this summer, the third-warmest for the season since the National Weather Service started keeping records in 1895.
The warmest average summer temperature was 74.7 degrees in 1936, with the second-warmest, 74.3, coming in 1934. The coolest average summer reading, 69.7, came in 1915.
None of the 48 contiguous states was significantly cooler than normal this summer, and 17 were much warmer than average.
"The combination of generally warmer- and drier-than-average conditions in other parts of the U.S. led to persistent or worsening drought throughout much of the country," said the report from the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.
Moderate to extreme drought affected 48 percent of the country at the end of August, with 29 states getting significantly below-average precipitation during the summer, according to the center. Nationwide, the summer ranked 30th-driest in the last 108 years.
The only states that were much wetter than normal were in the upper Midwest - Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and North Dakota. Strong thunderstorms caused flooding and hundreds of millions of dollars in crop losses in North Dakota and Minnesota in June, and Minnesota's average of nearly 17 inches of rain set a state record for the summer.
While there was some drought relief in the Northeast in the spring and into June, a return to below-average rainfall in July and August worsened the drought there. Maine had its driest August on record.
For many parts of the country, the current drought began with below-average precipitation as early as 1998 and generally continuing to the present. The driest 12 months since 1895 were recorded from last September through August in North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, Utah, Arizona and Nevada. Five other states had their second-driest spell - South Carolina, Georgia, Maryland, Delaware and Wyoming.
The drought imposed water restrictions and dried up wells in some communities. It also combined with the wet upper Midwest to cut productivity for both corn and soybean crops by 17 percent. And, due to those conditions, more than 50 percent of range and pastureland in 24 states was classified as poor or worse by the U.S. Agriculture Department.
Also, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., reported that as of the end of August, more than 6 million acres of land - mostly forest - had been consumed by wildfires this year, about double the average annual loss, with costs estimated in excess of $1.5 billion.
Still, Richard Heim, an analyst with the climatic data center, noted that conditions were still far less severe for the country's staple crops than in the worst times of the Dust Bowl era or even more recent droughts in 1983 and 1988.
"In those years, severe drought covered more of the primary corn and soybean growing regions than in 2002," he said.
In July 1934, 80 percent of the country was in moderate to extreme drought.
"And the severity of the 1930s drought was likely surpassed by drought in the 1570s and 1580s over much of the western U.S. and northern Mexico," the climatic data center report noted, based on studies done on tree rings and caves.
On the Net:
www.noaa.gov
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