More than a third of the United States is in the grip of a menacing drought that threatens to make it’s way into Illinois and other Midwestern states before the summer ends.
This has been the driest spring in the Southeast since record-keeping began in 1895, according to the National Climatic Data Center.
Parts of Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee are experiencing a level D4 drought, the most extreme level charted and the worst in the nation.
Experts blame the Southeast’s drought on a persistent high-pressure system that has kept rain away from the area.
After nearly a decade of drought in parts of the West, the nation’s fastest growing region wrestles with rising water demands and declining supply.
The winter snowpack in the Sierra Nevada range was only 27% of normal this year.
Severe dryness across California and Arizona has spread into 11 other Western states.
On the Colorado River, the water supply for 30 million people in seven states and Mexico, the Lake Powell and Lake Mead reservoirs are only half full and unlikely to recover for years.
Los Angeles County is on track for a record dry year with only 21% of normal rain downtown since last summer.
California ranchers are selling cattle or trucking them out of state as grazing grass dries up.
No comments:
Post a Comment