North Georgia Is Still Dealing With Drought Conditions

North Georgia Is Still Dealing With Drought Conditions.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the risk of river flooding in this region is expected to be low this spring.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Drought Monitor explained those dry soil conditions are due to most of North Georgia still being in a drought.
Pam Knox, an agricultural climatologist with the University of Georgia’s crop and soil science department, said drought conditions usually diminish in the winter.
“That’s because of [a] combination of lack of evaporation and dormant plants,” Knox said.
“This year, it has not reduced as much as we’d really hoped.
And that’s because it’s been so warm."
Knox said the warmer winter caused more water evaporation.
She said that could be a warning sign.
“We’re ending the winter recharge period now, and it looks like we’re probably going to go back into warmer temperatures again, after this cold spell ends,” she said.

Drought easing despite growing water deficit

Released Thursday, the U.S. Drought Monitor for the week ending March 14 shows that 35 percent of the state remains below optimum soil moisture levels.
That’s unchanged from a week ago, and includes all or parts of five northeastern Texas counties – Lamar, Red River, Delta, Fannin and Hunt.
Twenty-two counties are showing areas of moderate drought.
The assessment from the Texas Water Development Board explains, “As expected, rains in South Texas reduced drought conditions in the Lower Rio Grande Valley; however, drought and abnormally dry conditions expanded in other parts of the state, especially in northeast Texas were severe drought expanded into Red River County.
Precipitation was greatest over south Texas and into portions of Louisiana and Arkansas.
Degradation was also noted over northeast Texas where moderate drought expanded and over northwest Louisiana where moderate drought and abnormally dry conditions expanded.
Abnormally dry conditions also expanded over west Texas and the Panhandle.” During the week ahead, “Drier than normal conditions are anticipated over Texas and the Gulf Coast as well as in Alaska and the upper Midwest, where the greatest probabilities of below-normal precipitation exist.” According to the National Weather Service, a surface low pressure trough will gradually sag southward from the Texas Panhandle into the South Plains early Friday.
A cold front will slide southward near and just after daybreak Friday, with moderately gusty northerly breezes expected, along with drier air.
The region’s next chance at precipitation won’t be until the end of next week, according to forecasters, and that chance is fairly small.
Until then, unseasonably warm temperatures will persist, with strong winds developing across eastern New Mexico next Wednesday.

Severe Drought Conditions Expand Into Denver, Fort Collins

Severe Drought Conditions Expand Into Denver, Fort Collins.
DENVER (CBS4) – A new report from the U.S. Drought Monitor released Thursday shows that severe drought conditions are now being detected in the immediate Denver and Fort Collins metro areas.
A severe drought means that crop or pasture losses are likely, water restrictions could be imposed and in some communities, water supply could be at risk.
Drought conditions developed late last summer across eastern Colorado and have been expanding ever since.
At this point this is an agricultural drought due to a lack of precipitation over the fall and winter.
A large majority of the population in the foothills and on the eastern plains depend on water from reservoirs higher up in the mountains where winter snow has been abundant.
But things could change fast in the week ahead depending on how precipitation patterns develop over the spring and summer.
Meteorologist Chris Spears writes about stories related to weather and climate in Colorado.
Check out his bio, connect with him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter @ChrisCBS4.

How drought is wreaking havoc across East Africa

How drought is wreaking havoc across East Africa.
A member of the Turkana community of Lolupe, north of Lodwar in the Turkana region, searches for gold specks.
A first downpour relieved pastoralists in the drought stricken Kenyan Turakana region after a twelve month span that pushed livestocks and communities to the brink of another looming humanitarian crisis.
A boy looks at a flock of dead goats in a dry land close to Dhahar in Puntland, northeastern Somalia.
Drought in the region has severely affected livestock for local herdsmen.
A young herder from the Samburu pastoral community in Kenya grazes his family cattle on the dwindling pasture on the plains of the Loisaba wildlife conservancy, where controlled livestock grazing from surrounding manyattas (Samburu settlements) is helping mitigate conflict over increasingly scarce water and pasture during a biting drought season.
A member of the Turkana community of Lolupe, north of Lodwar in the Turkana region, searches for gold specks.
A first downpour relieved pastoralists in the drought stricken Kenyan Turakana region after a twelve month span that pushed livestocks and communities to the brink of another looming humanitarian crisis.

Saving Lives by Predicting Global Drought

Saving Lives by Predicting Global Drought.
Drought has long been hard to predict, but new research will now help forecasters develop early warnings.
But a new study could help because it reveals certain quite-specific geographic patterns that some regional droughts follow over and over again.
After analyzing thousands of droughts on all continents over a 30-year period, an international team of researchers found that about 10 percent of droughts follow predictable tracks.
The University of California–Irvine estimates that the California drought cost the state $1.8 billion and more than 10,000 jobs in 2015.
“It’s hard to predict where a drought might start.
But once the drought starts, if we understand the dynamics, we might be able to predict how it will evolve.” “For comparison, think of tropical cyclones.
“If we start seeing drought as dynamic events, as dry anomalies that travel, we might be able to forecast them in similar ways.
So we looked: What are the important physical drivers that make them move?
They found patterns on every continent and concluded that about 10 percent of the droughts — often the most intense — follow similar tracks.

The drought is just now beginning in California

1 of 1 View Larger Is the drought over?
• In normal water years, 38 percent of the state’s water supplies come from groundwater.
During the drought, we took 60 percent of our water from aquifers.
If the loss were a third of average for ever year that would translate to 20 million acre feet of water loss in reservoirs from 2013 to 2016.
• While one heavy year of snow and rain as we are now experiencing can bounce surface water reservoirs and lakes all the way up to the brim, it takes years to decades for underground water to be replenished according to the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California, Davis.
• In some cases, the loss of water leads to severe soil compaction meaning some ground permanently losses the ability to hold water.
Decisions regarding the timing of water releases and how it is used can create manmade droughts.
While local groundwater tables sustained more modest drops – typically under 10 feet – they are not going to bounce back in one year.
This is the reason the Groundwater Sustainability Act was passed in Sacramento that created a mandate to various groundwater basins throughout the state to strike a balance between what is taken out of aquifers and what flows in.
It also means unless we change our water use patterns for good, growth will be impossible to support especially in communities, such as Stockton, that rely 100 percent on groundwater without reducing per capita consumption.

Climate change to worsen drought, diminish corn yields in Africa

Climate change to worsen drought, diminish corn yields in Africa.
Maize is the most widely harvested agricultural product in Africa and is grown by small farmers who rely heavily on rainwater rather than irrigation.
Now MIT scientists have found that climate change will likely further worsen drought conditions in parts of the continent, dramatically reshaping the production of maize throughout sub-Saharan Africa as global temperatures rise over the next century.
“If under climate change we have changes in temperature and precipitation, this is arguably one of the worst areas of the world where we’re going to see really negative impacts on crop production and malnourished populations.” The researchers’ analysis also shows that climate change’s impact is less certain for the most arid regions of sub-Saharan Africa including the semiarid regions that produce over 40 percent of sub-Saharan African maize.
Kenneth Strzepek, a co-author on the paper and research scientist in MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, says the study’s results provide a map for how agricultural conditions will change in the next century, as well as where climate change’s impact is still less clear.
All this information, he says, is essential for government planners who aim to build up Africa’s economy and infrastructure.
Running the numbers To assess climate change’s impact on maize production, the researchers took a multimodel approach, working combinations of global climate model predictions into an open-source crop model that simulates crop yields over successive growing seasons.
An uncertain future By combining climate and crop models, the team simulated maize yields in Africa for the years 2030, 2050, and 2090, under two climate change scenarios in which global average annual temperatures would rise by 2 degrees or 4 degrees Celsius by 2100 under different greenhouse gas concentration trajectories.
Under the worst-case scenario, in which global temperatures will rise by 4 degrees Celsius, these models estimate the Sahel and southern Africa will experience widespread yield losses, with some grid cells showing losses of up to 50 percent.
Dale and her colleagues observed the climate models produced a much wider range of predictions — and therefore a higher degree of uncertainty — in the most arid regions of Africa.

PepsiCo, Coca-Cola Fight Patriotism in Drought-Hit Indian State

PepsiCo, Coca-Cola Fight Patriotism in Drought-Hit Indian State.
Shopkeepers in drought-hit Kerala state decided Wednesday to promote local brands over Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. beverages after counterparts in neighboring Tamil Nadu boycotted the multinational drinks.
“The root cause for the boycott isn’t the multinational companies, but the enduring fight between industrial users and farmers, especially in several drought-hit states,” said P.L.
India has at least 50 local drink brands, which are typically 20 percent cheaper than the global cola brands, brokerage Kotak Securities Ltd. said in a Feb. 23 report.
The association said it’s “deeply disappointed” with Kerala retailers’ call to boycott the the beverages since it hampers consumer choice, and said both companies use less than 0.5 percent of the water used by all industries in India, according to an emailed statement Wednesday.
Coca-Cola and PepsiCo provide employment to 2,000 families in Tamil Nadu and help support more than 200,000 retailers, the association said.
“There is a political overtone to the boycott,” said Ramu Manivannan, a political analyst and head of the politics department at University of Madras in the Tamil Nadu capital, Chennai.
PepsiCo sought police protection for water being brought to a plant in southern Tamil Nadu in 2015.
Most companies share water with farms, which employ about half of India’s 1.3 billion people and contribute 18 percent of the $2 trillion economy.
Agriculture gets the lion’s share, leaving industrial users to fight with municipal water suppliers for the precious resource.

GoFundMe Denies Fee Waivers For Somali Drought

GoFundMe Denies Fee Waivers For Somali Drought.
A severe drought threatens millions of people in Somalia.
It’s the world’s largest humanitarian crises, with more than 20 million people in four countries at risk of starvation, Stephen O’Brien, the UN humanitarian chief, told the UN Security Council on Friday.
Members of the Somali diaspora took to crowdfunding platforms in order to fundraise for victims of the drought.
“We’re a bunch of students that came together once we saw the problem, and it really touched our hearts.” Adam took to GoFundMe to fundraise, within the first 10 days, his campaign helped raise over $60,000.
“We chose GoFundMe because people were familiar with it,” Adam said.
“However, they did take $5,715 out of the $66,150 that we’ve raised.” GoFundMe charges a 5 percent platform fee and 2.9 percent (plus, $0.30) payment processing, a total of 7.9 percent per donation.
Somali Faces, an online platform set up to share stories of Somali people from around the world, created a petition to influence GoFundMe to waive the transaction fees.
The petition reads, “In this time of dire need, we request GoFundMe to show support and let 100 percent of donations directly benefit the drought victims in the Horn of Africa.” “We contacted them and asked if they could waive those fees, but they said they can’t,” Mohammed Shire, co-founder of Somali Faces, said.
“Since this is a huge crises we are hoping for GoFundMe to waive those fees given that, in the past, they’ve already waived these fees.” Previously, the crowdfunding platform gave a $100,000 donation, which amounted to the waiver of their transaction fees, to the Orlando shooting GoFundMe campaign.

$10 Million Aimed to Reduce the Damage of Floods, Drought

$10 Million Aimed to Reduce the Damage of Floods, Drought.
The winners of the Water Window Challenge, whittled from nearly 400 entries, will work over the next 18 months to help communities in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and South and Southeast Asia deal with floods and drought.
The challenge was organized jointly by the Global Resilience Partnership (GRP) and Z Zurich Foundation, the charitable arm of Zurich Insurance, one of Europe’s largest insurers, which provided the funding.
Luca Alinovi, Nairobi-based executive director of GRP, who is in Bangkok to meet the winners, noted floods are the biggest driver of weather-related humanitarian crises around the world.
“We wanted to find solutions that not only help to manage it better but to transform it into an opportunity for a more prosperous life,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Flooding accounts for nearly half of all weather-related disasters, affecting more than 2.3 billion people in the past 20 years, 95 percent of whom live in Asia, according to the GRP.
12 innovative ideas The 12 water challenge winners were chosen for ideas that are innovative, easy to scale up, adjustable and likely to deliver concrete outcomes, Alinovi added.
They include the University of Waterloo, which is adapting low-cost amphibious homes used in flood-prone areas of the U.S. state of Louisiana for the Mekong Delta.
The Danish Refugee Council’s proposal, meanwhile, will help refugees in northwest Kenya cope with recurring droughts and floods using techniques including a mobile phone-based warning system and fast-maturing, hazard-resistant crops.
The projects will be rolled out in Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia.