Midlands drought conditions are worse now than at anytime in 2018.
The United States Drought Monitor upgraded parts of the area to severe drought in the southern Midlands and expanded the moderate drought status across the central Midlands.
This marks the first time this year any portion of the WACH Fox viewing area has been designated under severe drought.
Specifically central and southern Orangeburg County as well as the extreme southern tip of Clarendon County now fall into severe drought.
"This impacts the agricultural community, amateur gardeners, wildlife and it increases the likelihood of wild fires."
Aiken, Lexington, Richland, Calhoun, Sumter, Orangeburg and Clarendon Counties were upgraded to moderate drought.
Many of these counties have fluctuated between no drought, abnormally dry and moderate drought since 2017.
The only areas in the Midlands exempt from drought are northern portions of Newberry, Fairfield and Kershaw Counties.
The State Drought Response Committee, under the state’s Department of Natural Resources oversight, last updated the drought status in late November.
Click here for the full seven day forecast.

TUCSON – Nearly all of the Grand Canyon State is experiencing severe drought.
This is according to the April 5th edition of the U.S. Drought Monitor.
93% of Arizona is in the severe drought category, while 48% of the state is under extreme drought.
Areas in extreme drought include portions of Pima & Cochise Counties, all of Santa Cruz County and a good chunk of central & northeastern Arizona.
Through April 4th, Tucson is running a yearly rainfall deficit of 0.61".
However, that rainfall deficit is 2.41" dating back to early October.
In order to break out of the drought, southern Arizona needs almost 6" rain in one month.
Tucson’s average April rainfall is only 0.31", marking the third driest month of the year historically for the Old Pueblo.
These ominous signs come as Arizona’s wildfire season starts up.
Grass and brush for much of the state are holding only about 3-4% of their normal moisture.

Weekly temperatures averaged below normal in the northern Rockies, northern and central Plains, Midwest, mid-Atlantic, and Carolinas, and above-normal in the Far West, Southwest, southern Plains, along the Gulf Coast, and in northern New England.
In Alaska, readings were much-above normal in western and northern sections and near to below normal in southern and eastern portions.
Southeast Precipitation amounts were greatest (0.5-1.5 inches) in western and southern sections, while little or no precipitation fell on southeastern Virginia, the Carolinas, eastern Georgia, and most of Florida.
Although the winter and spring months are normally dry in most of Florida, an early cessation to the 2017 rainy season and subnormal winter and spring precipitation has promoted recent drought conditions.
Elsewhere in Alabama and western Georgia, not enough rain fell to improve conditions, but did keep the area at status-quo.
From south-central Texas northeastward into western Louisiana, a swath of 3-8” of rain provided 1-2 categories of drought improvement, while more scattered bands of moderate to heavy rain allowed limited 1-category improvement in parts of southern and central Texas.
Elsewhere in the Midwest, there was no prior dryness or drought, and 2018’s wet pattern continued this week.
Looking Ahead During April 5-9, 2018, unseasonably heavy precipitation (2-6 inches) is expected in western sections of Washington, Oregon, and the northern half of California, plus the Cascades and Sierra Nevada, with lesser amounts in the remainder of the Northwest and northern and central Rockies.
Light precipitation (less than half an inch) is predicted across the northern half of the Plains, Midwest, and southern Great Plains, with greater totals (1-3 inches) in the lower Mississippi Valley, Southeast, mid-Atlantic, and New England.
For the ensuing 5 days (April 10-14), odds favor above-median precipitation for much of the Far West, northern thirds of the Rockies and Plains, Midwest, lower Mississippi Valley, New England, and southern Florida, with sub-median totals in the Southwest and south-central High Plains, Southeast, and northern Alaska.

Erik Gomez, intern, Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture Knowing how much you have of something that can’t be seen is an critical issue in the drought-prone state of Ceará in Northeast Brazil.
Washington State University researcher Sasha Richey leads a project that will provide better measurement, monitoring and management of the groundwater in this region of Brazil.
120 tools for under $20 Traditional tools to assess the status of groundwater are cost-prohibitive for rural communities such as those in Ceará.
Richey, an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has teamed up with fellow Cougs to develop a cost-effective alternative.
Together with Arda Gozen, assistant professor in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Kirk Reinkens, director of the Frank Innovation Zone, and a group of engineering students, Richey’s team has created 120 inexpensive groundwater measuring tools for the communities of Ceará.
The cost of each is under $20, built solely from components that can be purchased at any hardware store globally.
Each study community will participate in a training workshop starting later this month to learn how to use the devices and also to learn basics of groundwater sustainability and local water management policies.
As emergency measures, the state water agencies installed over 3,000 groundwater wells in urban and rural areas, increasing the communities’ reliance of groundwater.
They didn’t have a way to measure the water level of their wells and didn’t have information about best water management practices.
The researchers hope that their inexpensive measuring tool will help people in the region improve conservation and water sustainability starting at the household level.

It is the second driest state in the nation, and much of the state is classified as desert, receiving less than 13 inches of annual precipitation.
The unusually wet winter replenished area reservoirs that were trending below normal storage levels, and well below capacity.
But the drought conditions have resumed this year in Utah and throughout the Southwestern United States.
According to the Utah Drought Monitor, abnormal dryness or drought is affecting 2,764,000 people, most of the population of the state.
The Utah Drought Monitor map shows most of Carbon and Emery Counties in a severe drought.
Precipitation this year is currently 62 percent of average, compared to 137 percent of average at this time last year.
Snow water equivalent of the snowpack in the mountains is just 56 percent of the median, compared to 132 percent last year at this time.
The encouraging news is that due to last winter’s heavy precipitation, reservoir storage in the Price/San Rafael River Basin is still well above average for this time of year.
As of April 1, Basin-wide storage is 123 percent of average compared to 83 percent at this time last year, based on measurements at four reservoirs.
It currently contains 53.7 KAF, which is 175 percent of average for this time of year.

New Mexico Counties Designated As Drought Disaster Areas – Associated Press A dozen New Mexico counties have been designated by federal agriculture officials as primary natural disaster areas due to drought.
In all, 27 of New Mexico’s 33 counties are affected by the designations.
About half of the patients list post-traumatic stress disorder as a qualifying condition.
Southern New Mexico City Sets Clean Energy Goals – Las Cruces Sun News, Associated Press One southern New Mexico city wants to get all of its electricity from clean energy sources by 2050.
The city has eight solar-generating installations, producing about 2.1 million kilowatt hours of power yearly.
Nuñez’s father also has been arrested in connection with the boy’s death.
Englander, who is white, has said he had no racial motivation when he threw the banana peel at Chappelle, who is black, but was angered by something Chappelle said during the show.
Englander’s claim he was assaulted wasn’t mentioned in the police report, but his lawyer said it would have been raised if Englander went on trial.
The American Jobs Project released its report Tuesday, touting the state’s connection to two national laboratories, research universities and abundant sunshine.
It also set into motion a series of events that could cause the lab to incur up to $1 million in state penalties.

“There are many different ways to manage stress in an orchard.
When you’re looking at the amount of water that’s available, strategizing how to apply that through the season is critical.” The historic drought from 2012 to 2016 forced almond growers to put into practice water-conservation strategies they’d been taught by University of California Cooperative Extension crop advisors — so say a farmer and an advisor in a newly released video on water management.
“I would say our water management improved considerably because it had to,” he says in the video, part of series on drought tips from the UC California Institute for Water Resources.
Meena has been working with David Doll, a UCCE pomology farm advisor based in Merced, to develop ways of getting the most out of every drop of water.
With almonds being a perennial crop, excessive water stress in a given year impacts not only that year’s crop but the following year’s, too, Doll says in the video.
“There are many different ways to manage stress in an orchard.
And the Sierra Nevada still has only a fraction of its average snowpack for the beginning of April, considered the season’s peak, the state Department of Water Resources reports.
To keep tree stress levels below that threshold, growers will need to decide when to apply water to reduce the impact of stress on trees, Doll and Shackel note.
Cutting back too much on water in an already under-irrigated orchard can cause severe stress, so the scientists advise tracking the orchard’s need with the use of a pressure chamber.
They scientists also provide tips for minimizing yield loss and maintaining kernel quality amid more severe seasonal water shortages.

That’s almost as much as the 74 gallons we were using in January 2013 — a year before California’s drought emergency was declared.
On April 7, 2017, the day Brown issued an executive order calling off the drought emergency, the Sierra snowpack was 164 percent of average.
Since May 2015, the State Water Resources Control Board, an agency that emerged during the drought as California water cop, had been requiring every city and water district to cut its water use by a certain amount.
Take a city like Palmdale, where water use rose 5 percent after the drought was called off compared to the same period in 2016.
Palmdale allowed people to water their lawns more often, and backed off on enforcement.
“And if the state says the drought is over, and if customers don’t see a change in the rules, that kind of undermines the credibility of next time we really need them to save water.” Other cities, like Redlands, didn’t change any of its water rules, but officials suspect their customers started to slack off because they’re hearing mixed messages about the need to conserve.
And that was feeding back into more political action, and more media coverage.” But since Brown called off the drought, media coverage has also dried up.
What about in my city?
Santa Monica’s new water neutrality ordinance, passed three months after Gov.
When she calls residents to tell them about the leak, she offers them a rebate on their bill for fixing it – but only if they agree to reduce outdoor water use first.

Agricultural meteorologist Johan van den Berg, who specialises in crop insurance at Santam, said although drought conditions were serious and still remained in parts of the Western Cape, it had largely broken.
“It’s possible the Gariep, Vaal, Bloemhof and some other dams may have full storage capacity in the next weeks.
(However) the water situation in the Western Cape remains very serious.
“It’s still too early for any reliable (rain) forecasts for coming months and the next season, and the best indication is for neutral conditions to continue.” Van den Berg said the period from March to July was volatile in terms of rapid changes in sea surface temperatures, which could affect rainfall.
Meanwhile, projects around the Western Cape, such as project Waterdrop, which took place on Saturday, are still in place to ensure that vulnerable individuals receive adequate water supply should Day Zero be reached.
Close to 30 000 people joined Jacaranda FM on Saturday and supported project Waterdrop during the Super Rugby clash between the Vodacom Blue Bulls and the DHL Stormers, to raise funds for installing boreholes with solar pumps at schools.
The cost per borehole is about R50 000.
“We will provide water to two schools, Ocean View Education for Learners with Special Needs and Kleinberg Primary,” said Jacaranda FM’s Kevin Fine.
Daily News

Modal Trigger PERGAMINO, Argentina — Jorge Josifovich is silent and downcast as he walks under the pounding sun in one of Argentina’s most fertile agricultural regions, staring at soy crops parched by the country’s worst drought in years.
The drought, which began in November, has caused big losses, reduced expectations of economic growth and raised concerns among farmers, government officials and experts in the world’s third-largest exporter of soybean and corn.
“It’s dramatic,” said Josifovich, a farmer and agricultural engineer who provides advice to growers.
He picked up soy seeds from a plant that stands at about half its normal height.
While Macri struggles to reduce the country’s high fiscal deficit and tame inflation, Argentines continue to lose purchasing power and many are growing increasingly frustrated with rises in fuel and transportation costs.
The value of grain exports this year could be cut by up to $3.4 billion as a result of the drought, according to recent estimates by the Buenos Aires Grains Exchange.
That translates into an estimated $1.1 billion in losses.
“This is directly hitting our pockets,” Alejandro Calderon, president of the farming group Rural Society of Pergamino, said as he inspected soy plants with Josifovich at a field about 140 miles northwest of Argentina’s capital.
Corn is expected to come in at 32 million metric tons, a 22 percent drop from expectations earlier in the season.
“We have a business that is out in the open air and we depend on weather,” Josifovich said.