Most of Michigan is now rated as abnormally dry or in moderate drought.
The amount of land area rated as abnormally dry or in drought increased by 40 percent in the past week.
The U.S. Drought Monitor now has two large areas of Lower Michigan in moderate drought.
The second area of moderate drought doubled in the past week.
Moderate drought covers most of the Thumb and now most of northeast Lower Michigan.
We’ve had some rain in Michigan since last week.
Some areas have a little relief from dry conditions.
Most areas of the Thumb had less than one inch of rain in the past week.
That moisture helped the crops for a few days, and then was gone.
This coming week has one rain in the Thumb and southeast Lower, but the rest of Michigan looks generally dry.

Much of the area is rated in a D3 (extreme drought) or D4 (exceptional drought), according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
Bollinger said since this time last year there have been mostly abnormally dry conditions over the southwest region.
In June, temperatures reached record highs across the region.
June was much of the same, Bollinger said.
“I feel like I’m sounding like a broken record, but we’ve seen a lot of the warmer than average temperatures continue for most of this region,” she said.
“And the reason that warmer than average temperatures are going to be so important, in the region in wintertime it means your not going to be accumulating that snow pack that you really need to build up the water supply when we get to the summer.” The warmer than average temperatures increase the amount of evaporative losses, which worsens the dry conditions, she added.
“We haven’t seen enough precipitation to improve conditions widespread,” Bollinger said.
Bollinger said this is a more active fire season than normal, largely attributed to the drought conditions.
Drought means there’s no water for cattle, especially when ponds are drying up.” Ranchers are having to haul hay and water to cattle already in all the 4 Corners states.
Regional outlook “How do we get back to normal?” she said.

BULLHEAD CITY — Arizona Steering Committee work began Thursday in Phoenix on the Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan.
Lois Wakimoto, steering committee representative.
“The four key elements for DCP implementation are going to be agricultural mitigation, tribal intentionally created surplus, Arizona conservation plans and excess water.” LBDCP is a plan developed by Arizona, California, Nevada and the United States to create additional contributions to Lake Mead from Arizona and Nevada, along with new contributions from California and the U.S. with incentives for additional storage in Lake Mead.
Should Bureau of Reclamation declare a shortage in August, Arizona would take the deepest allocation cuts beginning in January.
The plan works to reduce reduction risks by requiring additional incremental water-delivery reductions by Arizona water users, primarily Central Arizona Project water users and most significantly, CAP non-Indian agricultural water users, who would bear the brunt of a Tier 1 shortage.
“It’s not if it’s going to happen — it’s going to happen because of the (Lake Mead) water levels.
We’re looking for ways to mitigate some of the situations that we have to deal with unless we get a huge rain — which with snowpack down over the winter doesn’t seem like it will happen anytime soon.” Steering Committee objectives include recommending appropriate and sustainable processes and tools to implement the plan in Arizona, as well as obtaining Arizona Legislature approval for a joint resolution authorizing the director of Arizona Department of Water Resources to agree to the plan.
As a municipality representative on the committee, Wakimoto is urging Arizona municipalities to contact her regarding their water issues.
“I will try to reach out to them, but they also need to reach out to me,” Wakimoto said.
“I know what Mohave County water issues are, but La Paz issues are a little different and I’m looking for information on what they want.” Arizona Department of Water Resources and Central Arizona Water Conservation District representatives announced the formation of the steering committee at a joint briefing in May.

Image SYDNEY, Australia — The cattle are more bones than meat, the dirt more dust than soil — and the rain, the glorious rain, just never comes.
In response, state officials in New South Wales announced a new assistance package on Monday worth 500 million Australian dollars, or about $370 million, that will expand existing loan programs and subsidize transportation for shipments of feed and water.
“Farmers are past the point of subsidies and loans.” Image Ambrose Doolan, 53, who has spent decades working the plains near Coonabarabran, said it was now common for farmers to spend tens of thousands of dollars a week or month to feed animals that would normally be grazing free.
Farmers these days wake up and go to sleep thinking of both rain and hay.
“I don’t know anywhere we’re going to find hay within 750 kilometers of us,” said Jess Taylor, 36, a mother of four on a farm in Coonabarabran.
“I do believe there might be some in Western Australia, but that’s a long way away.” The last delivery of hay they bought traveled roughly 900 kilometers.
On his 6th birthday, Ms. Taylor said, her son Harry knew just what to ask for: rain.
“We want to set ourselves up for when it does rain again, so grants for us to clean out our dams or build them bigger would be huge.” Many farmers said the government, at the state and federal levels, should be doing more to ease farmers’ burdens — perhaps by paying for feed and giving it to farmers, rather than expecting them to arrange for it or take out loans they may never be able to repay.
Farmers say the time is now.
“I’m worried all the time,” said David Heinjus, 52, who owns about 1,500 sheep on a farm in Temora, a small town in New South Wales.

Several Arkansas state agencies should start a network for drought monitoring by Thanksgiving and create councils for responding, communicating and evaluating drought risks, according to a report released in June.
No council has met yet, said Edward Swaim, water resources division manager for the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission, which spearheaded the drought planning efforts.
About one-third of Arkansas’ counties are currently in severe drought, according to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s National Drought Mitigation Center.
That’s already hurt a lot of cattle farmers, said Vic Ford, associate director for egg natural resources at the University of Arkansas Extension Service.
Those farmers have been forced to feed cattle with hay that is often stored for use in winter months, he said.
When state officials first began work on a drought plan more than two years ago, Arkansas was one of only three states in the country that didn’t have one.
In coming up with a drought plan, the Natural Resources Commission used the guidance of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln National Drought Mitigation Center and the Southern Climate Impacts Planning Program at the University of Oklahoma.
They would oversee monitoring, risk evaluation, responses and public outreach.
For example, so far this year, drought conditions have lowered water levels in Washington County rivers, rendering them too low to float on, according to the Drought Mitigation Center’s Drought Impact Reporter.
Droughts can kill farmers’ crops, and herbicides that need rain to activate them don’t work.

Recently I attended a presentation on a groundwater implementation plan for the City of Cape Town.
Good leaders surround themselves with people who can provide them with information they need, not information they want.
As soon as emergency drought relief drilling started, the chorus went up about the impact this would have on the environment.
So where are the environmental impacts from this groundwater abstraction?
Like all professions, we have good hydrogeologists and not so good hydrogeologists.
But a review of groundwater use in this country points to it having no more than very small and insignificant environmental impacts.
Using the recently attended groundwater presentation as an example, the speaker was describing the volume of groundwater that could be abstracted from aquifers in an around Cape Town.
The volume of groundwater abstracted may be in the order of 10 – 15% of recharge, a relatively small amount.
I regularly hear that the aquifers in and around Cape Town are getting hammered by the drought and the frenzy to abstract groundwater.
I never see any measured data to support such claims.

The study captured both drought and wet conditions, which enables comparisons between farmers’ mental health under different climate conditions.
Interestingly, higher levels of drought-related concerns were also reported following mild to moderate wet conditions.
Farmers under the age of 35 experienced higher personal drought-related stress.
So drought planning and preparedness needs to consider the impacts of drought on mental health and well-being differently to the way in which we prepare for and respond to “rapid” climate extremes.
We know “rapid” climate extremes can have devastating impacts through loss of life, injury and other threats to communities.
While many people cope and adapt to rapid climate extremes, we know a substantial proportion will go on to develop mental health problems as a result.
Much less is known about chronic, slow-onset climate extremes such as protracted drought.
Supporting rural communities, and especially farmers, to cope with droughts can have benefits for their well-being and mental health.
Strengthening personal, financial and social support for farmers may help in adapting to droughts when drought-related stress is affecting their mental health.
These include: reducing stigma about mental health problems to overcome barriers to seeking professional help and advice early professional help to be more readily available and easier to access in rural and remote areas (such as e-health programs) professional education for all health services, including general practitioners, so they can look out for and address the effects of drought-related stress – they need a good understanding of the pressures facing farmers and farming communities and the ways they can be more alert to their needs community education and public health campaigns so farmers and rural residents can identify the effects of drought-related stress and take appropriate action education and training for non-medical agricultural support services, such as rural financial counsellors, who need to be able to confidently identify early signs of drought-related stress and provide appropriate support continued funding of Rural Adversity Mental Health Program coordinators who link rural and remote residents to services and provide community education and support better opportunities and encouragement to maintain and develop community connections and social networks reasonably priced and reliable internet access to enable increased use of e-health and relieve isolation transparent and consistent information about the processes farmers need to follow to access grants and loans.

NIEDERNDODELEBEN, Germany (AFP) – Withered sunflowers, scorched wheat fields, stunted cornstalks – the farmlands of northern Germany have borne the brunt of this year’s extreme heat and record-low rainfall, triggering an epochal drought.
As the blazing sun beats down, combine harvesters working the normally fertile breadbasket of Saxony-Anhalt in former communist East Germany kick up giant clouds of dust as they roll over the cracked earth.
"It hasn’t really rained since April and that’s the main growth period for our grains and the other crops – we’ve never seen anything like it," said Juliane Stein of Agro Boerdegruen, a farming conglomerate formed after German reunification in 1990.
A natural disaster is declared by German authorities during a drought when at least 30 percent of the average annual harvest is destroyed.
Given the massive losses feared by the sector this year, the German Farmers’ Association (DBV) has called crisis talks on Tuesday to discuss urgent state aid.
While southern Germany has seen largely normal rainfall this year, the north has been in the grip of an unrelenting high-pressure system creating weather conditions more familiar in southern France or Italy.
"We expect billions in losses," DBV president Joachim Rukwied told German media last week.
"The government needs to declare a state of emergency so that farmers in areas hit hardest by the drought can be helped directly with cash aid," Rukwied said.
While the sunshine has fostered larger and sweeter fruit than usual, sugar beets, rapeseed, potato and corn crops have been decimated in the drought, prompting farmers to cut their losses and harvest two to three weeks earlier than usual.
Stein said that to grow crops like potatoes – a staple of the German diet – her farms have long relied on watering systems because the region, in the rain shadow of the Harz Mountains, is generally too dry.

“This drought, that’s Mother Nature and we have no control over that,” he said.
“Primary production across this country, the prices are way too low and we are seriously getting affected,” he said.
“The most effective way people can support farmers like Jason is through campaigns like the buy-a-bale program we are running, because it consolidates the money which can be used to buy fodder, groceries or provide the mental health support our farmers need,” Charles Alder, the founder of Rural Aid, told Today.
He said Rural Aid had raised almost $1 million in the past week to help farmers like Mr Maloney.
John Haycock is a third-generation farmer in Dubbo, NSW.
NSW is virtually out of hay and we’ve got a pre-order to get grain for us and we can’t find it.
It’s just being sold overseas,” he said.
Today Woolworths announced it would invest $1.5 million into the buy-a-bale program which directly helps farmers in need.
Mr Haycock said the government looked after the framers during the bad drought of 1982.
“A lot of these guys and girls are really lonely,” he said.

Since July of last year, Columbia and surrounding areas have seen less than thirty inches of rain.
July 18, Governor Parson issued an executive order that activated the drought assessment committee.
In a meeting open to the public today, the committee came together to working to mitigate the drought with innovative strategies.
47 counties were initially included in the executive order, but since then 5 more counties have been added to areas that have severe or extreme droughts.
This is seen in the newest drought monitor that was issued early Thursday morning.
While the drought is nothing like the magnitude of 2012 as a whole, select areas are seeing worse conditions.
With the drought expected to grow, this will likely mean that phase three of the drought response plan will go into effect.
Until then, officials are stressing the importance of submitting drought information, which is critical in understanding how a drought is impacting a local area.
You can submit that information here.
As the current drought continues to expand and worsen, there are some resources available for farmers and ranchers, they include: – Livestock Forage Disaster Program – Livestock Indemnity Program – Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program – Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honeybees, and Farm-Raised Fish Program – Emergency Conservation Program – Emergency Haying and Grazing To see if you qualify or for more information you can contact your local Farm Service Agency.