Drought Update

Drought, it's an ugly word, and it's something that we're in the middle of right now. July ended with a deficit of 1.26" at National Airport, but more than 4" (4.05") at Charlottesville. Many of the deficits for 2007 range from 4.5" in Baltimore to 8.5" in Hagerstown.

Farmers are hurting with many crops severely damaged or even destroyed. Some areas, like Purcelville, VA and Mt. Airy, MD already have some watering restrictions in place and we're looking at some very hot and mainly dry weather to start the month of August.

I've been saying for weeks on my noon weather broadcasts that you really should be watering your plants and trees, especially if they are not well established. This type of weather can kill them.

There's a great resource for drought information. NOAA runs the US DROUGHT MONITOR. The images are updated on Thursdays and this is the latest image available when I was writing this blog.

As bad as it is here, you can see that areas of the south are much worse with exceptional drought conditions across parts of Alabama.

My sister lives outside of Birmingham and she tells me that they take 2 minute showers to conserve and there are severe financial penalties from the water company if they exceed a set usage allotment. And you thought we had it bad.

Across Maryland, the worst conditions are across Charles, St. Mary's and Calvert counties and that area has expanded into western Montgomery, western Frederick and southern Washington.

In Virginia, there are 2 areas of severe drought. One extends from the Northern neck up toward the DC suburbs of Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties and the other is in the southwestern part of the state.

All of these images can be clicked upon and you'll see the bigger version, but you can also go to the US DROUGHT MONITOR and check out the latest images.

This dry weather is also making for more heat. When there is moisture in the ground or in the air, it takes more energy to heat than when things are dry. The sun actually heats the ground and then the ground gives off heat to that tiny layer of air in contact with it. That air, then mixes with other air to spread out the heat.

When the ground is dry, it heats up that much faster and in turn heats the air that much faster. It's a vicious cycle that will persist for a while. We need some real rainfall on a regular basis to change things. In the meantime, water your plants and trees and conserve whenever possible.