Fauquier, Prince William under drought watch.
A “drought watch” has been issued for Fauquier, Prince William and the surrounding counties by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.
The DEQ is requesting the area prepares “for the onset of a drought event.” The DEQ said the drought watch advisory “applies to public or private groundwater supplies or private surface water supplies in Fauquier, Prince William and Loudoun counties.
But "water systems using the Potomac River or Occoquan Reservoir are not affected at this time.” The watch includes the surrounding area in northern Piedmont and Northern Virginia and is “intended to increase awareness of conditions that are likely to precede a significant drought event and to facilitate preparation for a drought,” according to the DEQ.
New record low-water levels for March have been recorded in two long-term observation wells in Fauquier and Orange counties.
The abnormally dry conditions experienced during much of November through February produced below-normal groundwater recharge that may negatively affect water availability during the summer months.
DEQ said that “while public and private water supplies are in good shape at this time, conditions could deteriorate as the spring and summer seasons develop.” DEQ is “notifying all local governments, public water works and private-sector water users in the affected areas, and is requesting that they prepare for the onset of a drought event by developing or reviewing existing water conservation and drought response plans.” The state is urging the effected areas to take these voluntary steps to conserve their water supplies: Minimize nonessential water use.
Review existing or develop new local water conservation and drought contingency plans and take conservation actions consistent with those plans.
Impose water use restrictions when consistent with local water supply conditions.
Aggressively pursue leak detection and repair programs.

So how did the California drought end?.
We were told that the multi-year California drought was caused by humans, fossil fuels and CO2.
After all in 2015, this was the standard reportage.
Here’s an example from a no doubt solemnly intoned NBC News report: In parched California, rainfall patterns are essentially the same as they were 120 years ago, but humans have made it warmer and that added heat is driving the state’s crippling drought, according to a new study.
Warm temperatures dry out soils and cause precipitation to fall as rain rather than snow, thus reducing annual snowpack essential for irrigation, for example.
What snow does fall then melts earlier in the spring.
Shouldn’t the renowned experts such as Al Gore, Jerry Brown and President Obama answer the question?
The correct answer is that the multi-year drought started and ended the way they always have, cyclically and naturally.
Humans can no more control temperatures, sea levels and storm activity than the can the Earth’s orbit or solar activity itself.
It’s about time the media starts asking questions before the greedy powerful government destroys the economy.

by Rose Lander, originally posted on September 22, 2015

 

Colombia is suffering the worst drought and forest fires in the country’s history because of weather phenomenon El Niño. According to meteorologists, the situation is likely to get worse.

El Niño is the warming of the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean which occurs every few years and affects the weather pattern of the tropics, causing heavier than usual rainfall in some areas such as Peru and Ecuador but unusually hot and dry weather in Colombia, resulting in drought and forest fires.

Colombia’s Housing Minister, Luis Felipe Henao, told El Tiempo newspaper that this drought is the worst that Colombia has seen for decades and that the last three years have been the driest that the country has ever suffered.

Rainfall has been extremely low causing the rivers to dry up. The Magdalena river is at its lowest level on record. Its average flow is 7,200 cubic meters per second and currently at several sections this level has fallen to less than half.

The Cauca river is also dangerously low, the Pance river is dry and it is possible to cross the rivers that hydrate Santa Marta on foot.

So far this year 3,421 forest fires have been reported which has affected 77,300 hectares of woodland, 70% of the annual deforestation rate.

According to Ideam, the meteorological institute, October, November and December will see even higher temperatures and therefore the drought is set to get much worse before it gets better.

The affected regions

La Guajira, Bolivar and Magdalena in the north, Valle del Cauca on the Pacific coast,  Boyaca and Cundinamarca in the center and Tolima and Quindio in the western central region are the most affected departments in the country.

Water restrictions have been put in place in 130 towns in total. Rationing could also be imposed in 312 more towns.

Cundinamarca has water restrictions imposed in 60 of its municipalities. Valle del Cauca has 16 towns with enforced water restrictions including its capital, Cali. Magdalena has 13 rationed towns including its capital, Santa Marta. In Bolivar 14 towns have restrictions and in Boyaca, 10.

According to Henao the department of La Guajira is experiencing a rainfall deficit of 78%, Magdalena has a deficit of 54%; Atlantico, 48% and San Andres, 47%. All of these departments are on the north coast of Colombia.

So far the capital, Bogota and other large cities, Medellin and Barranquilla have not had to resort to rationing.

Proposed and imposed measures

According to Henao the government, businesses and citizens alike can all do something to help the situation.

Incentives for saving and fines for wasting water have been established which reduced the consumption of water in certain regions.

In total 656 emergency plans have been put in place across affected regions.

The state imposed water restrictions on many of the affected areas in order to ration the water supply. Each town is managing the water restrictions differently. Some have arranged a daily rationing with water available for a few hours a day and some have imposed a weekly rationing.

So that the residents are not left without water to drink the state is setting up reservoirs and wells and sending lorries to affected towns, delivering sufficient water for the week, Henao told El Tiempo.

The government has disconnected illegal diversions from the rivers in Valle del Cauca and La Guajira where businesses had diverted water in order to grow rice or bananas, for example. They are now monitoring the level of the rivers.

Ramiro Muñoz, sub-commander of La Vega fire department told Vanguardia that often the forest fires are started by people dropping cigarette ends or pieces of glass and asked the population to take better care of their environment.

Henao begged Colombians living in regions currently still with a normal water supply not to waste water and to think about a child elsewhere in the country who could desperately need it.

The effects of the worst drought in Colombia’s history caused by El Niño are not set to improve until March 2016, according to Ideam.

ERIGAVO, SOMALILAND — As the breakaway republic of Somaliland grapples with a severe drought, medical workers are struggling to aid people left weakened by malnourishment and hunger. A 70-year-old hospital in Erigavo, the capital of the Sanaag region, is operating beyond full capacity to treat people affected by the drought. And it’s the only hospital in the region. The drought has left tens of thousands of children acutely malnourished. In desperate need of treatment, they are checked as they lie on the beds in this stabilization center ward. Ismail Saleban Bowkah, the hospital’s director, said most of the children admitted for care come from rural areas. “The drought forced most pastoralists to move from one area into another.Some…

Good news as of last Thursday: the region is now officially out of its drought. As of last week, Genesee and Orleans counties moved out of drought status. Wyoming County moved out a few weeks prior to this. You would have to go back to April 19, 2016 to find the last time no part of the three counties was declared in a drought. “Your drought has been pretty stubborn to be brutally honest,” said Eric Luebehusen of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He added that precipitation in this area falls relatively frequently, so “it’s tough to get a drought that lasts this long.” To clarify though, there are varying degrees of a drought. There is a short-term effect of a drought and a long-term effect, though they’re not necessarily based on amount of time. For instance, Luebehusen said an area jumped to a D2 drought after not showing any signs of a drought. And…

Republican senators have proposed a state budget for this year that includes $3 million towards helping upstate farmers recover from last summer’s drought, the worst the state has seen in decades. In some cases, the dry summer weather resulted in the loss of entire crops. The federal government designated more than 20 counties national disaster areas due to the severity of the drought. Lawmakers in the…

By George Obulutsa and Abdirahman Hussein BURAO, Somalia (Reuters) – In a makeshift camp beside a disused airfield in the breakaway Somali region of Somaliland, 32-year old Nima Mohamed sits next to an open wood fire, boiling a kettle of black tea. Unless aid groups bring them food and water, the tea is the only meal of the day for her three sons and three daughters who lie nearby in a home made of old bed sheets. Mohamed is one of the two million people in the breakaway Horn of Africa republic — about half its population — facing starvation after an acute drought killed their livestock. “We have lost all our animals,” she told Reuters. Before their goats died from lack of pasture and water, they provided milk for the children to drink and butter which…

woman-in-foodline-16-9.jpg The United Nations announced this month that more than 20 million people in four countries are teetering on the edge of famine, calling the situation “the worst humanitarian crisis” since the end of World War II. The key for avoiding the worst outcomes? Political will, experts say. Modern famines are different from those the world faced 60 to 70 years ago. In the past, with less warning and less international support, more people died from hunger. In the early and mid-20th century, famines killed millions in Europe and Asia, in areas with much larger populations than areas which suffer from food insecurity today. According to estimates from the World Peace Foundation, the deadliest famine in recorded history actually did take place after World War II. During China’s Great Leap Forward, about 30 million people died from hunger between 1958 and 1962. What explains the UN’s statement, then? They may be counting famines by decade, which would have split the Great Leap Forward crisis between the 1950s and the 1960s: These days, famines cause death by the thousands, and are mostly confined to the Horn of Africa. Improvements in transportation and communications infrastructure have been successful in eliminating large-scale famines in virtually all other parts of the world. But the current situations in Somalia, Yemen, Nigeria and South Sudan are undeniably harsh. “Those people will suffer, their children will be malnourished, they will likely be displaced, lose their livelihoods, and some people will no doubt die as a result of this crisis,” says Dan Maxwell, a food security professor and director of the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University. Maxwell exphasizes that modern-day famines are rarely caused by a lack of food. “There has never been a case that agricultural production causes famine alone,” he says. “It only causes a famine if someone lets it cause a famine.” And that’s where data become especially important. Measuring early indicators is crucial for averting famine, as is early investment. In its March announcement, the UN asked for $4.4 billion in emergency funding for…

Researchers at the German Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) found the Amazon rainforest could be exposed to higher risks of dieback if dry seasons intensify and rainfall decreases. This could lead to a vicious dieback circle, they said in a study published in Nature Communications. “The Amazon rainforest is one of the tipping elements in the Earth system,” said lead-author Delphine Clara Zemp, who conducted the study at PIK. “We already know that on the one hand, reduced rainfall increases the risk of forest dieback, and on the other hand, forest loss can intensify regional droughts,” she said. “So, more droughts can lead to less forest leading to more droughts and so on. Yet the consequences of this feedback between the plants on the ground and the atmosphere above them so far was not clear.” The researchers found the close relationship between deforestation and drought could put the Amazon further at risk. When it rains, trees absorb water through their roots and then release it back into the atmosphere. Tropical forests produce most of the water they need themselves: they pump moisture which then rains back to them. Yet logging and warmer air – due to greenhouse gas emissions – reduce precipitation and hinder the moisture transport from one forest area to the other, affecting even remote areas. ‘Vicious circle’ “Then happens what we call the ‘cascading forest loss,'” said co-author Anja Rammig from the Technical University of Munich, who is currently working as a guest scientist at Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact…

A new University of Illinois study puts climate change predictions in terms that farmers are used to: field working days.
In the new study, they coupled those models with climate change scenarios to forecast field working days into the future.
The models suggest that the typical planting window for corn will no longer be workable; April and May will be far too wet to work the fields in most parts of Illinois.
But we’ve already seen the trend for early planting.
Those drier, hotter summers are likely to change farming practices too, particularly in southern Illinois.
If farmers bet on the early planting window and get hit with a frost or more March precipitation than expected, are they out of luck?
Or farmers could choose shorter-season cultivars, planting early and then harvesting before the drought, possibly sacrificing yield.
That’s good, but I think we’ve fallen behind in the cropping system management side.
Given the weather in Illinois this late winter/early spring, this work seems particularly timely.
Changes in field workability and drought risk from projected climate change drive spatially variable risks in Illinois cropping systems.