Agricultural News
Drought Now Covers Almost Three Fourths of Oklahoma as Latest Drought Monitor Catches Up to Reality
Fri, 16 Dec 2016 04:39:21 CST
Drought has dramatically expanded across Oklahoma in the latest Drought Monitor. In reality, the forecasters that release the Monitor weekly are "catching up" with what has been developing on the ground since the beginning of fall. The map above shows the latest Drought Monitor status and was released on Thursday morning.
According to Oklahoma State Climatologist Gary McManus- "Lost in all this talk about winter and cold and freezing and frigid and frostbite and when-will-it-end is another hazard that gets far less notoriety, but is much more damaging...drought. And this week, we did what's called a "reassessment" of the drought situation across Oklahoma. We do these from time to time when we feel like the proper drought depiction has sort of "gotten away" from us. That can mean the data we're seeing isn't matching what's actually happening on the ground, and that was the case over the past month or so. After some very detailed descriptions from county level down to the individual ag producer level communications, it was time for that reassessment. Hence, we have seen a huge jump in the drought conditions this week since last week based on a new understanding of the actual impacts.
"As you can see from the data table, we had a jump in the percent of OK in at least moderate drought from 58% to 72%, and an increase in moderate/severe drought from 17% to 36%. We were lucky to have extreme drought stay at 3%.
"Now you may be wondering why the big jump after it's gotten so cold, a time when drought usually doesn't increase. No plants yearning for water, evaporation is low, no swimming pools being filled or lawns being watered (well, most lawns not being watered...still see folks out watering dormant bermuda grass for some reason). Remember, before this 2-week cold snap we had just come off our 2nd warmest fall on record, in the midst of our 3rd warmest year. Many, many reports of dry or drying-up farm ponds, failed wheat, dead pasture grass and flagging OK reservoirs prompted the reassessment. Even some of our major reservoirs are showing the impacts, and this is mostly water loss during the fall."
The map below shows latest reservoir levels- and it shows the lack of rainfall is really beginning to show.
For the complete Mesonet Ticker from Gary McManus, which includes many more graphics to show the drought as well as the cold weather headed for Oklahoma, click or tap here.
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