Bad News on the Drought Front

[Aslkahuna]

The latest Drought Monitor shows that all but a small portion of eastern AZ is now in Severe to Extreme Drought and that Moderate to Severe Drought has spread across most of TX except for an area around Brownsville and a small portion of eastern TX. The outlook is for improvement in Central and Eastern TX, minor relief in the Western Plains and no improvement at all in the InterMountain West and Desert SW. With Drought also in Mexico, the soil moisture deficit will seriously and adversely impact the rainfall during the monsoon. Cold phase ENSO conditions are developing but the impact of this may not occur until we are into the monsoon. The last two warm phase events, which ended in 1995 and 1998, also quickly entered cold phase conditions. Of the two, 1995's monsoon started late and became wet in August and September while the 1998 monsoon started on time and was wet in July but dry in August and September. The 1995 monsoon was pretty much normal to slightly above in rainfall while the 1998 monsoon was drier than normal by a little bit so the ENSO signal is mixed. OTOH, the other signals including the drought outlook point to a drier than normal monsoon. At any rate, my monsoon discussion and outlook will be posted on my homepage this weekend.

Steve

[weatherlover427]

Let's hope it won't be that bad of a brush fire situation this summer! :o

[azsnowman]

OH GEESH Steve, "Thanks a LOAD!" "LOL!" Just kidding, damn, here we go AGAIN, it's drier right now than it was last year and we're coming up on the 1st year anniversary of the Rodeo Chediski Fire, to top it off, it's Memorial Day Weekend, you oughta see all the PEOPLE up here already and it's not even the weekend!

Dennis

[weatherlover427]

Stay safe Dennis! :o

[M2]

Therefore Steve, does that mean that there will be two more years of drought-like conditions before a wetter phase begins, or will the drought timeperiod be longer than that?

[ColdFront77]

M2, I hope you don't mind me giving my opinion..... Theoretically, if this current drought could be two years or longer, couldn't it be less than two years?

[M2]

No problem Tom. I was just asking Steve if the current obs would point to our drought ending or continuing during a specific timeperiod, be it two years or 11. We have cyclic wet/dry phases out here in the Intermountain West and Steve understands the nuances of Western weathersystems and climate. Did you know that in Southeastern Arizona, we have conditions similar to Oklahoma during certain times of the year? And with the same results! Tornadoes! Yah, baby!

[Aslkahuna]

is currently in a negative phase. The last time that happened was in 1945-1961. During that period of time the entire decade of the 1950's was drier than normal through most of the Western US and into the Plains. In fact, in parts of eastern NM and Western TX the Drought of the 1950's was worse than the one in the 1930's. The current Drought in AZ had it's begininngs with the ENSO cold phase event of 1995 and became an actual Drought in 1996 and with the exception of only one year (2000), rainfall-particularly in the critical Winter season, has been below normal. ENSO cold phase and PDO negative phase conditions do not favor wet conditions in the Winter here (the heavy rains in 2000 occurred in the Summer and early Fall) and the continued dry trend tends to reduce our Summer rainfall due to feedback. With this in mind, I don't forsee total mitigation of the Drought and a return to sustained normal or above precipitation anytime this decade though we may see another year maybe two that will depart from this scenario. In the past, Drought has lasted as long as 40 years in Arizona and the rest of the West so water managers need to be aware of that possibility this time around. We are only 7 years into this one and the last negative PDO period of 16 years had perhaps 4-5 wet or normal years in it.

Steve

[M2]

Well if this drought is going to continue out here for 10 more years,
we will be in a world of hurt - reservoirs or not. There must be enough
runoff to fill them up - and although we had a few good storms this
year, the runoff was insufficient for much recharge to the water
systems. There has been continuing speculation on why the former
inhabitants of this area disappeared back during historical times -
the Anasazi - and other indigenous popuations in the mountains,
canyons and valleys. Well drought is probably the reason they
took off...not enough water to sustain them. This does not bode
well for Phoenix, Tucson, and general areas around here, even Dennis'
White Mountains up the road.

[Aslkahuna]

sustain Drought for 10 years or a bit more, we would probably be able to muddle through though people in Los Angeles and Palm Springs and other places in CA would have to make life style adjustments-but that's their problem and not mine. The disappearance of the Pre Columbian civilizations has generally been attributed to Drought which may have also contributed to the decline and fall of the Mayans. Studies show that then the drought was far more protracted than this one has been with durations exceeding 20 years. This one's been going for only 7 years. The bottom line for those who waste water during good years is that it will come back to bite you in the behind in bad years. California is going to have live with their allotment of water. For those in the cities, remember that tomatoes, lettuce and fresh fruit all taste a whole lot better than concrete and asphalt-which means I favor water for AG over water for swimming pools, car washes, etc.

Steve