SCIENTISTS SAID WE WERE OVERDUE FOR CATACLYSMIC DROUGHT
Drought is a disaster in slow motion.
Scientists say 1999 is shaping up to be another year of unpredictable and destructive weather conditions.
Studies of climate trends spanning the past 10 centuries indicate that immediately following El Nino episodes, North America has periodically suffered cataclysmic droughts and wildfires that would make the Dustbowl look lush. WE ARE OVERDUE, SCIENTISTS WARN. And its impacts could be exaggerated by record high temperatures in the 1990s that some believe are the result of global warming caused by human activities.
"We're heading into a very, very dangerous situation," said University of Arizona tree ring expert Tom Swetnam.
"It's really off the scale." (February 1999)
Weather patterns have become intense - with some areas getting severe drought and some areas suffering huge storms and accompanying flooding. In the United States, La Nina has pushed the jet stream north. Weather patterns cleave the nation roughly in half, tracing the Interstate 80 corridor between New York City and San Francisco. Portions of the South and Midwest are being strangled by a spotty but tenacious drought that has been gripping parts of the nation for several months. No one is certain how much worse the drought will get. Long-range forecasts by several federal agencies agree that dry conditions could persist with a vengeance throughout the Sunbelt and portions of the Midwest until July. (July is the peak month for wildfires in the U.S.)
"Drought occurs in almost every region on earth on a somewhat regular basis. Patterns of relatively wet, dry, hot or cold weather usually run in six-to-eight-year cycles. Drought is a result of one to three years of particularly dry, hot weather that climaxes in a relative disaster in some form -- crop failure, dry wells, serious wind erosion. Then its time is up and the dryness abates. Drought doesn't last forever. Rain comes and after a few years, it stabilizes the water table depleted by the drought. Then the rain abates and a drier period begins once more... periods of intense or stalled weather conditions are likely to endanger or cause serious economic deprivation in the affected region. (Charles H.V. Ebert, University At Buffalo)
Dec. 6, 1999 - Brazil, the world's largest coffee producer, was expected to grow about 40 million bags of coffee for the 2000-01 crop season. However, the lack of rain has reduced crop estimates by as much as 30 percent. The crop could total about 28 million bags. A bag is 132 pounds.
Nov. 30, 1999 — Special Moslem prayers will be conducted in drought-stricken Syria on Friday to ask for rain, the state media reported on Monday. A severe continuing drought in Syria this year has had a serious effect on the country's agriculture, slashing grain production and diminishing exports of cereal crops.
ISRAEL - Nov. 22, 1999 — Israel is facing its worst drought in nearly a century. There are calls for the Israeli government to declare a national state of water emergency and to launch a massive program to treat wastewater to be used for agricultural irrigation. Foreign Minister David Levy said the country "must import water from Turkey immediately" in order to resolve the escalating water crisis. Israel is already two months into the winter season and is still without any significant rainfall.
MAURITIUS - November 16, 1999 - Faced with the worst drought in 95 years, authorities have limited water use to no more than 6 hours a day in the capital of Port Louis. Other areas of the Indian Ocean island of 1.2 million people will have access to water for only one hour each day. Water reserves on the central plateau, the island's wettest region, have dipped to 56% of normal.
November 6, 1999 -
Lions and leopards have killed 21 people in southern Tanzania this year, largely because a severe drought has killed their normal prey, a government official said. "Drought has forced older animals to move closer to human settlement in search of food and into killing people," Natural Resources Minister Zakia Meghji said.
NASA provides 21st century solutions to 1999 drought -
As many drought-stricken farms in America limp through the last harvest of the 20th century, researchers are using remote sensing technology developed for the space program to help improve crop management and increase profitability.
The availability of inexpensive agricultural products for consumers in the next century could depend on such capabilities -- potentially meaning the difference between "boom" and "bust" for American farmers in the new millennium.
At the Global Hydrology and Climate Center at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL, NASA scientists are collaborating with university researchers to apply remote sensing technology to a sophisticated agricultural technique called precision farming.
In precision farming, growers break fields down into regions, or "cells," analyzing growth characteristics of each cell and improving crop health and yield by applying precise amounts of seed, fertilizer and pesticides as needed. Traditionally, farmers have lacked the ability to make those close analyses of specific cells. When they fertilized their crops, they simply spread it uniformly across the entire field. "Now, using remote sensing feedback, we can tailor that input more precisely," says Doug Rickman, lead researcher for the Global Hydrology and Climate Center.
The 208th annual edition of the Old Farmer's Almanac is forecasting a widespread drought next summer after a relatively mild, dry winter for the United States.
August 28, 1999 - An ongoing drought in BRAZIL and the eastern lowlands of BOLIVIA has worsened their fire danger.
Aug. 23, 1999 - GREECE - The third heatwave to bake Greece this year is causing the hottest August in 20 years. Warm air masses moving out of North Africa have caused temperatures to soar to more than 108 degrees Fahrenheit.
Aug. 19, 1999 — Northern CHINA's Shanxi province has been struck by a severe drought for the third year in a row. Nearly 4 million acres of crops have been affected, with a half million acres destroyed.
More than 3 million people and 460,000 livestock animals are experiencing a shortage of drinking water, the Xinhua News Agency reports. Sixty percent of the province's small reservoirs have dried up, and another 20,000 wells are low on water.
HAWAII - rainfall in May was the second lowest for that month since 1925 and June and July also were among the lowest. On the Big Island the drought has persisted since January 1998 in Kau, south Kohala and Kona, and the county extended the drought declaration to Hamakua and north Kohala in July.
August 9, 1999 -- Fires over more than one million acres across four western U.S. states blazed, fueled by the hot and dry weather which has parched the region.
Wildfires raged through Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Nevada over the weekend, with Nevada alone suffering 23 fires. Firefighters were able to beat back four large blazes by Friday night, but four new ones started on Saturday. More than 992,000 acres were charred in that state alone.
Meteorologists predict that the dry, windy weather would continue until the beginning of the week for much of Nevada, but that the northwest corner of the state and most of Oregon, Washington and Idaho were expected to receive enough rain to help control the fires.
Sweden has experienced unusually hot and dry weather this summer.
PRIOR REPORTS:
WORLDWIDE:
UGANDA - July 29, 1999 -- The mountain gorillas of Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable National Park are seriously threatened by forest fires which have been raging through the area for the past week. Uganda is one of only three remaining African countries where the gorillas can be found in the wild. The Uganda Wildlife Authority is afraid the gorillas will flee the region and that the park's ecosystem will be destroyed. Residents and park officials have been battling the blazes in vain due to the dry weather, which has caused a nationwide drought.
ETHIOPIA - July 14, 1999 - More than five million citizens of Ethiopia are threatened by severe drought.
In an urgent appeal to the world community, UN officials requested the launch of a humanitarian effort to stave off the effects the far-reaching drought that has plagued the country. The agency warned that unless a relief plan is enacted soon, many people may die of starvation within the next six months. Members of the disaster agencies contributing to the report stated that they have noted a rapid deterioration in the humanitarian situation since mid-June, with populations beginning to migrate, high rates of malnutrition developing and people eating wild plants in order to survive.
IRAN - July 8, 1999 - Lack of rain parched crops nationwide, causing billions of dollars of damage.
Iran had 40 percent less rain this year than last year. Damage so far is about $3.3 billion dollars (10 billion rials) and is unprecedented in the last 40 years.
ISRAEL - June 27, 1999 - Israel is experiencing the most severe water crisis in its fifty year history. The
drought this year is the worst since surveying started in the region fifty-five years ago. A total of 261 mm of rain fell, only 50% of the annual average. Even if next year is not a drought year but merely below average, the crisis will worsen. It is the worst drought year in the current century. Damage is estimated at hundreds of millions of shekels - a natural disaster causing the largest economic damage in Israel's history.
RUSSIA - June 27, 1999 - A severe drought which has hit Russia for the second year in a row has raised fears of grain shortages in this bread-eating country. The Russian Agriculture Ministry has scaled down its grain harvest forecast for this year from 70 million tonnes of grain to 55-60 million tonnes. The actual harvest may prove even worse, as meteorologists predict that the drought this year will be equal to that in 1998 in its severity. Last year's harvest - a mere 47 million tonnes - was the worst in 40 years and sparked calls for international food aid programmes.
An unusually hot, dry weather has gripped large parts of Russia for three weeks now and is likely to continue through July and August. Several Russian grain-growing regions - including Central Russia, the Volga region, Stavropol, Kalmykia, Omsk and Novosibirsk - are already suffering severe heat, with temperatures reaching 37oC - the level at which it becomes almost impossible to keep crops sufficiently watered. Meanwhile, there has been little rain, and the precipitation that has fallen has made no real impact. The drought comes on top of a cruel cold snap in the first two weeks of May. After an unseasonably warm April, winter returned with a vengeance as temperatures plummeted below zero, badly damaging many crops that had been planted after the thaw.
Every year drought and other bad weather conditions destroy harvest on 6 per cent to 11 per cent of Russia's total crop area, but last summer the figure was 25 per cent and can be as high again this year.
SPAIN - June 1999 -- suffering from THE WORST DROUGHT IN 50 YEARS. The entire country, both the mainland and the Spanish-held Canary Islands, has been affected by the extreme conditions. The central regions reported 14 inches (370 mm) of accumulated rainfall so far this year, which is half of the norm for the area and the lowest amount recorded since 1949. Temperatures have also been hotter than normal, worsening the parched conditions.
MEXICO - May 24, 1999 - Rainfall in Sonora state is 92 percent below average this year. In Nayarit state, rainfall this year has been zero. The 20 big dams and water reservoirs in the five states declared disaster areas are down to an average of 19 percent capacity. Even the Rio Grande, which separates Mexico and the United States, is running almost dry along a long stretch of the border.
To make matters worse, a heat wave is sweeping northern Mexico, especially the Pacific coast states. Temperatures in some parts of Sonora and Sinaloa states hovered around 110 degrees last week.
State governor Juan Milan said the water shortage was due to a drought that has also affected farms elsewhere in Mexico and the southwestern United States. The dry conditions come less than one year after low rainfall in the area devastated farms and dried up water supplies. Rains that fell in much of northern Mexico late last year broke a drought that had lasted for almost six years. It has not rained here since August 1998, and the little that fell then made virtually no difference to a region no entering its fifth consecutive drought year.
NORTH KOREA - May 11, 1999 - Already stricken by severe food shortages, North Korea said today that droughts are setting in across the isolated communist state during the crucial planting season. Hardest hit were the east coast cities of Chongjin, Wonsan and Hamhung, which have had no rain at all for the past three or four months, the report said. Other provinces also reported less-than-average rainfall, the agency reported. North Korea's traditional breadbasket, southwestern Hwanghae province, reported only half its usual rainfall. North Korea's food stocks ran out early last month and millions of people have been forced to survive by eating grass, corn stalks or whatever they can forage.
The government has released an official death toll from four years of famine, caused by drought, floods, tidal waves and other natural disasters, admitting that hundreds of thousands of people have died of lack of food. An official with the state Food Damage Rehabilitation Committee issued figures showing a 37 percent increase in deaths between 1995 and 1998, which would mean about 220,000 people.
A US congressional delegation estimated last year that 2 million North Koreans have died from starvation or hunger-related illnesses during the famine. South Korean intelligence officials say North Korea's population has fallen from 25 million to 22 million.
With factories closed by chronic fuel shortages, North Korean cities are filled with workers struggling to survive through May and June, the leanest months before the year's first harvest.
ONTARIO, CANADA - May 10, 1999 - Serious drought is feared if the weather trend of the past 16 months continues.
Streams are choking and the lakes are shrinking. Fish like walleye and northern pike have been unable to move upstream to spawn. Great Lakes ships have to run with lighter loads. Warmer temperatures coupled with a lack of rain this spring and snow in winter has caused greater demands on a dwindling supply.
Last year was THE WARMEST ON RECORD - temperatures in Toronto have been higher than normal every month for an unprecedented 17 months, going back to December, 1997. All but four of the past 16 months have been drier than normal in Toronto. The Great Lakes have dropped to their lowest levels this decade. Lake Superior, the biggest of the lakes and the feeder of the other four, is at its LOWEST LEVELS ON RECORD. The most immediate problem is the forest fires. There are just as many fires raging this year - more than 200 - than last , but they have destroyed more timber than all forest fires combined during the same period in 1998.
PAKISTAN - April 28, 1999 -- A deadly heat wave that has scorched the subcontinent of India during the past week is now responsible for 11 deaths and the loss of thousands of chickens in neighboring Pakistan.
INDIA -May 5th - Death Toll Rises From Indian Heat Wave-- Nineteen more people died across India on Tuesday as an unrelenting heat wave, which has now claimed more than 140 lives, showed no signs of receding in parts of the burning subcontinent. More than 2,000 died in a scorcher last year.
April 24, 1999 -- A severe heat wave lingering across parts of India and Bangladesh triggered widespread forest fires in the northern Himalayas. Temperatures in the area soared to 111 degrees Fahrenheit (43.9 degrees Celsius). Meteorologists warned that the hot spell could continue until monsoon rains set in across the sub-continent in early June.
SYRIA - April 25, 1999 -- The WORST DROUGHT CONDITIONS IN 26 YEARS caused a 4,000-year-old spring to run dry over the weekend. The Fieji spring and the Barada river have been supplying the country with its drinking water for more than 4,000 years. However, rainfall registered at Fieji dropped to a meager 279 mm in April from 450 mm during the same period last year -- essentially drying up.
IRAQ - Suffering from possibly the nation's WORST DROUGHT IN HALF A CENTURY. Water levels in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers have dropped so much this year that people can cross them on foot, according to farmers and residents in northern Iraq. The drought is caused by little and late rains. The United Nations and the Iraqi government both say privately that this year's yields, particularly of wheat, barely and rice, will be at least 75 percent less than last year, a bumper year for crops. The water shortage has forced the government to ban planting of rice, the country's staple food.
PALESTINE - ONE OF THE HARSHEST DROUGHTS IN 60 YEARS (April). And the dry season is over 2 months away. In 1998, ONE OF THE HOTTEST SUMMERS IN MORE THAN 25 YEARS, villages endured many days with little or no piped water. Tension is growing for control of water between Israelis and Palestinians and between Israel and Jordan (faced with the water shortage, Israel wishes to reduce in half the amount of water they agreed to supply to Jordan in a 1997 agreement).
CHINA -- WORST DROUGHT IN MORE THAN A DECADE. 19 million residents lack drinking water and more than 21.5 million acres (8.7 million hectares) of farmland are parched. China has witnessed very little rainfall since last September. Scattered precipitation in the central and eastern regions has provided only slight relief. The drought immediately follows SOME OF THE WORST FLOODING IN THE ASIAN NATION ON RECORD.
U.S.:
August 6, 1999 -
Drought is worst on record for four U.S. states - worse than the dust-bowl years
U.S. - August 1, 1999 - In the Northeast, the region that has been hit hardest so far, the drought is shaping up as the worst since 1964 and it could surpass that. "The entire state has been in a drought status virtually since last December," said Susans Rickens, a spokeswoman for the PENNSYLVANIA Environmental Protection Agency. "This could be the worst drought in state history." The Susquehanna River, one of the major waterways in the Northeast, has dropped to its lowest summer level in more than 100 years.
After one of the driest winters on record, ARIZONA's bone-dry wilderness areas are being monitored in case they ignite. An estimated 700,000 people live in the path of potential wildfires. Fires are also a major concern in the parched Pacific Northwest, where ample moisture in the winter led to a buildup of brush that has now dried to kindling.
Large stretches of the South have drought or near-drought conditions, including GEORGIA, S. CAROLINA, TEXAS, OKLAHOMA, ARKANSAS, CONNECTICUT, and MISSOURI. Some counties in NEW YORK, MARYLAND, VIRGINIA and WEST VIRGINIA are 15 inches below normal rainfall levels for the past 12 months.
Forecasters hold out little hope of relief anytime soon. The long-term outlook from the Climate Prediction Center, part of the National Weather Service, is for below-normal precipitation through the early months of next year. Even normal precipitation won't take away the long-term drought. The National Weather Service estimates that 7.5 inches of rain would be necessary to return coastal and southern regions back to normal. Only a tropical storm of hurricane strength could unleash that much water.
GREAT LAKES - July 21, 1999 -- The largest fresh surface water system in the world has dropped to a 32-year low due to diminished snow and rainfall in the region. All of the Great Lakes, along the U.S.-Canadian border, have now receded to record low levels and are expected to continue to recede until November before they begin rising again due to seasonal precipitation. Numerous boats have run aground recently, and many docks along the shores have become unusable. The Great Lakes, which are so large they are visible from the moon, supply about nine-tenths of the total freshwater supply of the United States.
June 25, 1999:
Out West, lack of snow last winter and too little rain since then has stunted grazing grass and dried up lakes. In Texas the 1998 drought cost the state $10.4 billion in agriculture losses alone. Earlier this week, Arizona Gov. Jane Hull declared a state of emergency aimed at gaining tax breaks for ranchers struggling to recover from the third-driest winter in 100 years. Arizona's mountain snowpack is 97 percent below normal in some ranges. Rainfall is 80% below normal. Forests are choked with so much dry fuel that a windswept inferno would incinerate all plant life. When rains return, soils that took 100,000 years to accumulate would be flushed into streams, carving gullies 40 feet deep in moments. Arizona drought details
NO DROUGHT RELIEF PREDICTED FOR THE MID-ATLANTIC REGION OF THE U.S. - June 1999 -
Lacking a series of major storms, the two-year drought in the mid-Atlantic region is expected to extend throughout the year. "While we think that short-term relief is possible, the long-term hydrologic drought conditions will persist unless we experience a major tropical storm or hurricane, and we may be talking about drought into the indefinite future," said Ants Leetma, director of the NOAA Climate Prediction Center. La Nina is expected to generate one of the most severe U.S. tropical storm and hurricane seasons this summer and fall. But those storms may come too late to save crops in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, LeCompte said.
"If we don't bounce back in a hurry, there will be major losses in the eastern half of the country," LeCompte said.
Usually, droughts don't come until late summer or fall. Since this one has come so early -- and because the ground is still parched from last year's drought -- crops, plants and trees are being crippled at their most vulnerable time. "We've never really faced this type of moisture situation in the past," said Ray Garibay, state statistician for Maryland's Agricultural Statistic Service.
Drought is the consequence of an accumulation of nonevents -- the absence of storms, a lack of rainfall. A standard definition is a 30 percent drop in precipitation for three consecutive weeks. Once established, drought is likely to persist for months, or years.
Drought is a disaster in slow motion.
