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You'd think the end of summer would mean the end — or at least beginning of the end — of this year's drought, but the nation's official stat keepers on Thursday revealed otherwise.
With the Midwest corn harvest in full swing, the worst U.S. drought in decades actually worsened: 65.45 percent of the lower 48 states was in some form of drought on Tuesday, up from 64.82 percent a week earlier, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
The 65.45 percent is a new record in the 12-year index tracked by the monitor, and it could get worse before getting better.
"I would not be too surprised to see conditions continue to worsen if we do not see widespread rain/snow events" soon, Brian Fuchs, a climatologist who compiles the stats for the Drought Monitor, told NBC News. "The forecast does not bode well for any type of widespread improvements any time soon outside of the central and eastern Corn Belt and maybe into portions of Arkansas and Texas."
"The western and northern Great Plains have indeed continued to worsen and this has spread into the central and northern Rocky Mountains as well," he added.
Brad Rippey, a meteorologist for the Department of Agriculture, noted that the Seasonal Drought Outlook indicates any improvements are likely to "be at least partially offset by worsening conditions from the Pacific Northwest to the upper Midwest."
Why the drought's impact on a small sector of the economy could sway the presidential election, with CNBC's Steve Liesman.
Other stats from the latest Drought Monitor were not encouraging:
- Areas in extreme or exceptional drought, the two worst categories, were at 21.5 percent, up from 20.7 percent a week earlier.
- The worst drought conditions remain in the heart of the U.S. breadbasket, weather.com reported: Nebraska at 73 percent, Kansas at 51 percent and Oklahoma at 42 percent.
- Iowa: 100 percent of the nation's biggest corn producer is in some form of drought. That's the same as the previous week.
- Minnesota: 77 percent is now in drought, up from 64 percent, with extreme conditions in the northwest and spreading into southern areas, weather.com noted.
- North Dakota: 95 percent is in drought, up from 88 percent the week before.
- South Dakota: The entire state is in some form of drought, up from 96 percent.
As bad as it's been, some farmers are feeling lucky they got as much out of their harvests as they have.
"Technology and farm practices have helped compared to the last significant drought in the Corn Belt back in 1988," said Fuchs.
That technology includes seed hybrids engineered to be drought tolerant. While environmentalists are concerned genetically engineered plants will alter ecosystems, farmers are quick adopters.
Related: Drought-resistant corn seen as minimizing crop loss this year
Related: Drought-induced 'bacon shortage' not quite what it seems
Related: Time-lapse photos show drought's impact on corn field
Another factor has been Mother Nature.
"Some soybeans in the mid-South and lower Midwest were helped by late-summer rainfall, which included the remnants of Hurricane Isaac," said Rippey.
In the case of corn, "perhaps one of the biggest wild cards ... was the timing of reproduction," he added. A June/July heat wave "hammered corn in the lower Midwest," he said, while the western Corn Belt was hit by a separate heat wave in July.
"Fields that managed to pollinate either before or after these two heat waves fared better," he said.
"Still, we lost more than one-quarter (28 percent) of the U.S. corn production from pre-drought estimates — a total of nearly 4.1 billion bushels," he said. "Nearly one-fifth (18 percent) of the U.S. soybean production, or 575 million bushels, was lost."
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After a very dry and hot summer, September has brought some very welcome rains here in Denver...total of 2.95 inches for the month which is way above average. Precipitation for the year is about 5 inches below normal. Temps are seasonal...upper 70's and low 80's. El Nino has returned, could mean colder and wetter winter for most of the US.
I'm ready for a cold and wet winter... Sept has felt pretty rainy for us- we got 3 of our average 4 inches for the month. At least the grass has started growing again.
Now North Dakota too? That should help that burgeoning job market in the Northern Plains Region Desert region.
That means that Devils Lake, ND is no longer flooding as it has been for the last 15 years, and that Minnewaukan is not going to be flooded out, that Churchs Ferry and Penn are no longer flooded out and that the thousands of acres of farm land around them is no longer under water and can be farmed again and the road by Camp Grafton from the town of Devils Lake, ND to the Reservation, since all that water is gone, is now 40 feet above the surface of the Lake. I DON'T THINK SO!
You might want to type in a seach engine the following Devils Lake, ND flooding.
If you think the price of gas is bad, wait about 5 years and see what the price of water will be!!!!
Water wars are coming and there will be nowhere on earth that will be spared. BTW, without water, how do you think crops will grow????????
I lived a long life, but I'm scared to death for what is coming that will affect my children and beautiful grandchildren. God help us all,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Funny how they try to tie summer to droughts. Droughts can happen in the winter too. In fact some of the most severe droughts have happened in years where there has been unusual cooling instead of heat waves.
Here is a scatter plot that shows no relation between temperature and rainfall.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/michaels_pdsi-vs-gistemp_scatterplot.png
It is just as likely to be hot and wet as it is to be cold and dry, cold and wet, and hot and dry.
For the ACTUAL conspiracy please see:
http://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-institute-exposed-internal-documents-unmask-heart-climate-denial-machine
There is an organized effort to lie about the science and prevent any action being taken on the serious issue of global warming... and the 'WATTSUPWITHTHAT' denier website is PAID to assist in this disinformation...
And you are regurgitating that BS on here..
EVERY statement you have made on global warming so far has been shown to be a LIE- if anyone needs to go to jail for running a scam, its you... You just make things up, and it would take only a minute for you to google the facts...
Global warming is real and caused by human activity... You making an ass of yourself will not change that fact.
Your recent lies:
http://lifeinc.today.com/_news/2012/09/25/14095135-bacon-shortage-worldwide-unavoidable-uk-pig-group-says?threadId=3574669&commentId=70417905#c70407348
http://technology-science.newsvine.com/_news/2012/09/24/14071061-bill-nye-warns-creation-views-threaten-us-science?threadId=3573874&commentId=70382049#c70372274
http://technology-science.newsvine.com/_news/2012/09/23/14050004-florida-wants-nasa-land-for-commercial-spaceport?threadId=3573298&commentId=70381989#c70356806
ARRELL,
Thanks for calling out this nut.
For the numerically challenged, I think it would be good to use "Solyndras" as a unit of measure to describe the cost of weather related disasters (kind of like how ice chunks are measured in "Manhattans"). One Solyndra = $500 million.
Some 2011 examples:
Missouri River Flood -> 4 Solyndras
Missisippi River Flood -> 10 Solyndras
Texas Drought -> 10 Solyndras
April Super Outbreak -> 18 Solyndras
The 2012 Midwestern drought is approximately a 150 Solyndra disaster ($75 billion).
Perhaps this could help our conservative friends that get confused by numbers that have too many zeros
I suppose the irony is that, if you believe the Worlds scientists are in collusion for some nefarious reason you are really delulsional. If you believe the Republican party and their corporate masters know more than said scientists you're just ignorant. But the bottom line is that whether you believe them or not the facts speak for themselves. The reality of climatic refugees is happening around the world and in the U.S. And even if you're the most staunch rightwing nut you still must breath the air, drink the water and eat the food of an increasingly polluted planet. So my question is, what good are those promised jobs if you and your family are sickened by the environment? If the scientists are indeed correct where will you go to escape the coming effects, and if they are wrong, what's so horrible about cleaner air and water?
Here in AK, coastal villages that have existed for thousands of years, are being washed out to sea by rising waves. So for them the debate is over.
As I said four years ago...
Countries will start guarding their borders with firearms and military personnel to keep refugees and immigrants out to protect their natural resources, especially water. Natural resources are limited and finite and we are the only country with a government too stupid to realize that.
It's not just the water you drink. It's the water required when you pollute with human waste. Just because you don't look in the toilet when you defecate, just because you reach back and flush it away before you look in the toilet to find clean water, doesn't mean it magically disappeared.
Countries will start guarding their borders with firearms and military personnel to keep refugees and immigrants out to protect their natural resources, especially water. Natural resources are limited and finite and we are the only country with a government too stupid to realize that.
It's not just the water you drink. It's the water required when you pollute with human waste. Just because you don't look in the toilet when you defecate, just because you reach back and flush it away before you look in the toilet to find clean water, doesn't mean it magically disappeared
It is not the drought causing the bad economy it is Bush's fault!! It could also be the after effects of the Tsunami!
Ok, it has an impact but what about other industries and the development of our resources that would put people to work? What has Obama done except campaign and polish his image as a celebrity holding the position of president but doing nothing except diddy bop around at celebrity clubs and stupid liberal shows like the "View" and David Letterman another moron?
Barry has done nothing and he can now blame the drought or the bumps in the road or his own stupidity on why the economy is in the ditch! If he is re-elected based on those who vote on emotion instead of reason, we are going to be in deep kemchee for many years! We must get him and his idiotic crew of Cutter, Axlehead, Jarrett, Pelosi, Reid, Wasserman Schultz, Plouffe and his other morons out of office in Nov!
The citizens of this country want jobs and fiscal responsibility along with a future and not backroom deals and more BS speeches and appearances by a failed leader who only worries about his image! Send him packing!!
It is not the drought causing the bad economy it is Bush's fault!! It could also be the after effects of the Tsunami!
Ok, it has an impact but what about other industries and the development of our resources that would put people to work? What has Obama done except campaign and polish his image as a celebrity holding the position of president but doing nothing except diddy bop around at celebrity clubs and stupid liberal shows like the "View" and David Letterman another moron?
Barry has done nothing and he can now blame the drought or the bumps in the road or his own stupidity on why the economy is in the ditch! If he is re-elected based on those who vote on emotion instead of reason, we are going to be in deep kemchee for many years! We must get him and his idiotic crew of Cutter, Axlehead, Jarrett, Pelosi, Reid, Wasserman Schultz, Plouffe and his other morons out of office in Nov!
The citizens of this country want jobs and fiscal responsibility along with a future and not backroom deals and more BS speeches and appearances by a failed leader who only worries about his image! Send him packing!!
And I suppose you think Romney will repatriate his money from the foreign banks and start to pay his fair share of taxes. If you think giving more money to the 1% will improve the job market you have an extremely short memory. Those policies along with war-mongering drove our country into the hole and the best you can do is spout wing-nut group think rhetoric. Where are the specifics from Romney? What will he agreee/disagree with tomorrow.
But we still have the government mandates for percentages of corn going to ethanol. In order for that to change our fearless leader would have to act, figure the odds! Each hydrofracking well drilled requires between 3 and 6 million gallons of fresh water that never can be used again. Nobody knows how many wells have been drilled. I find that curious, why nobody on the face of the earth knows how many billions of gallons of water during a drought has been disposed of. Even if we did know, why would that much water be wasted during a drought for something that a large percentage of is exported. Though out the west local governments have been dealing with who gets how much water for irrigation for over fifty years, and in the southwest the rationing systems were inherited from Mexico. There will be a lot more droughts just like in the past
THEN ASK YOURSELF
Why the US Government insists on violating its own INS Numbers while importing poverty into the USA
We have 47% who do nothing--but suck up natural resources while laying the burden directly upon the overready stressed out USA's workers like me who have to get up, get ourselves, our families off to school, work and responsble et all: and we have to make certain we have money for gas, utilities, medicine, backpacks, school clothing, lunches, et all AND
PAY FOR THE 47% doing nothing but sitting back making UNFOUNDED comments overrun with adjectives...
We pay for your electric, housing, medical and cells for what?
We barely can pay for our own: and yet are solicited for everything: why are we permitting heathen breeding via sperm donoring on and on...at our expense?
NO MORE TAX DEDUCATIONs after TWO and certainly STERILIZATION after two...and no WELFARE
Time to stop rewarding those on the GOV TEET taking this nation down so fast...most are too dumb to realize we owe and are owned by the Communist Chinese BILLIONS building up their billion person army with our deficits interest $800 billion daily...
C A N YOU PAY THAT?
Meanwhile, they ship us their poisoned junk to overflow in our landfills.
ALL WHILE our government "sanctuary cities" COWARDS and TRAITORS WITH IN not only welcome but reward our
CRIMINAL ILLEGAL ALIEN INVADERS
with our US D E A D M I L I T A R I E S seats iin our USA's TAXPAID U N I V E R S I T I E S..
Beyond comprehension.
Water...we just had to cut down 27 dead trees or they would continue to fall on us...
If you look at that number and water is the primary need of all living things: we don't have much more time to keep killing Planet Earth and it appears with the numbers of the same name in our phone books times millions aorund the world: animals won't be here nor our native flora and fauna...so we have just cut our own throats.
Importing NUMBERS killing those of us who made choices to be parents, not heathen breeders via sperm donor exponentials from womb to tomb
Sendiing off US Military on to foreign soil each generation: while the 47% do nothing and we have Open BOrders...welcoming
I N V A D E R S Dial#2 for Spanish
The Dems voted against making ENGLISH our official language and that is the language of my founding forefathers whose lives have given you the freedoms you steal and take for granted.
UNWORTHY!
ANd the political HIGHjacker strikes right on page one. Take it to a politics thread.
ROMNEY WOULD NOT BE WHERE HE IS TODAY WITHOUT HIS RICH FATHER!!!
Romney said let the auto industry go bankrupt!!!
Let the farmers go bankrupt!! same difference!! THE 47%ers
ROMNEY KNOWS HOW TO PICK UP THE PIECES AND MAKE A PROFIT!!!!!
After all farmers are part of the 47% he doesn't care about!!!
Republicans or Democrats we are all AMERICANS!!!!
What is right for AMERICA???
Cut taxes for the rich???and destroy the middle class, elderly, and poor!!!
Sorry AJ, you're talking about a group that spouts "Constitution" while rigging the system to elimate voter rights. A group that sends brave men and women to battle then call them leeches when they come back damaged and fails to even mention them as though we've not been at war for over a decade. A group that claims to create "good" jobs while fighting a minimum wage and vilifying those people who work at such jobs. And I think I'll puke the next time I read a post of "I got mine, screw the rest of the world". No one delves into the cause of illegal immigration, namely the dumping of cheap subsidized farm products in poor countries driving the local farmers out of business. I can only imagine the desperation that drives people to cross deserts fleeing their homes in the hope of being able to feed their families.
Wow, StopUSA would have done well in Nazi Germany. Dude, that was done and it was an atrocity then and it would be an atrocity now. I'll bet you are a so called "christian" conservative.
Here will be another reason to have all of the sniffers and smokers from the 80's push the prices higher and drive Wall Street... in the next fantasy, the government will have mandatory insurance and mandatory twinkie purchases....
yeah i gotta say, here in anchorage, ak we have had over 2 feet of rain in the span of two weeks (and record breaking snow for the last winter). im so sorry to hear the rest of the country isnt fairing so well!
I keep getting conflicing stories about Global warming, and this drought that is plaguing the Midwest, is one of
the signs that our planet is in trouble. Some say it is just a phase that the earth goes through every so often, but I don't think so. I think the EPA is right, we are destroying our beautiful blue world. I believe there is a cure, but some people just don't listen, they would rather blame nature, than to put the blame where it should be. Fossel fuels, are a part of it, and if we don't even try to get things under control, in ten years we might see tremendous extinctions. My heart goes out to the people of the Mid west where wheat and soy beans grow in abundance. I live in Florida, and we are going to have a Red Tide soon, they said on the news last night that things are shaping up, for the biggest Red Tide Bloom, ever. That means fish will die, and people who are sensitive to it will get sick, and the beaches will stink with dead fish. I have tried to live as green as I can, but unless everyone does it it won't make any difference. Companys that make things like solar panels, and windmills, could make jobs for thousands of people, and people would benifite from the use of these products.
Let us hope that things will get better, but I don't know how we can make it better unless every one does just a little bit. Recycle, grow gardens, where you can, Use a hybred cars, solar heating, and wind power. Plant trees, there are alot of ways we can do it.
I'd just like to mention that I live and work right smack in the middle of that red section in Southern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois. I cover a lot of territory in a week. The corn harvest has been Poor to Fair. The Soybean harvest has looked Fair to Good so far. The Drought is much worse elsewhere. But what we are seeing so far in this here red zone would not be consider a crises. It just "not a good year is all..." the farmers tell me. And that ain't so bad, looking at the big picture.
You folks ranting and raving about politics... Don't you have something productive you should be doing? Get back to work. Ha!
stop the HAARP program and weather will get back to normal.
HAARP Video Documentary
check it out
The Antarctic just set a new record for the most amount of ice ever recorded. Maybe we should go get some and bring it here.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/29/according-to-noaa-data-all-time-antarctic-sea-ice-rxtent-record-was-set-on-sept-22nd-2012/