The Texas Drought and Heat

rimrocker · Oct 18, 2011

Deckard said: ↑

Heck, the glare off his bald noggin has him confused. No way that this is a decade long drought. At some point during the next year, we'll get so much rain that parched Central Texas will flood like crazy, the lakes will fill right up, Shoal Creek will look like a river, and folks will complain about the deluge and the body count. To top it off, it'll all probably happen over the course of a week or two. I've seen it before, and you probably have, as well. My prediction, at any rate.
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All current signs point to you being wrong.

Anyway, when the front moved through Lubbock, it kicked up a dust storm...

<a href="http://twitpic.com/727qef" title="1 of several photos from Lubbock WFO of yesterday's wind... on Twitpic"><img src="http://twitpic.com/show/thumb/727qef.jpg" width="150" height="150" alt="1 of several photos from Lubbock WFO of yesterday's wind... on Twitpic"></a>

It looks familiar...

DonkeyMagic · Oct 18, 2011

dust storms are not all that uncommon.

Predicting they weather for the next 10 years is a bit extreme and an absolute shot in the dark. That being said, west texas has been in drought like state for most of the last 15 years.

DaDakota · Oct 18, 2011

Deckard said: ↑

Heck, the glare off his bald noggin has him confused. No way that this is a decade long drought. At some point during the next year, we'll get so much rain that parched Central Texas will flood like crazy, the lakes will fill right up, Shoal Creek will look like a river, and folks will complain about the deluge and the body count. To top it off, it'll all probably happen over the course of a week or two. I've seen it before, and you probably have, as well. My prediction, at any rate.
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True Deck, I have seen it, and honestly, I would love to see it again, but this has been pretty bad these last 4 or 5 years, and it is getting worse.

Since we don't live long enough on the planet to have a real amount of data to go by, I am hoping the region is not turning into Arizona.

DD

Deckard · Oct 18, 2011

DaDakota said: ↑

True Deck, I have seen it, and honestly, I would love to see it again, but this has been pretty bad these last 4 or 5 years, and it is getting worse.

Since we don't live long enough on the planet to have a real amount of data to go by, I am hoping the region is not turning into Arizona.

DD
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I'm trying to be optimistic. I didn't move to Austin over 30 years ago only to find myself in Arizona! I'll add that the scenario I mentioned might not mean the end of the drought, but would at least fill the lakes and give the springs a chance to keep going.

CrazyDave · Oct 18, 2011

I hear that. Of course, if you go by the people that say it's a 10 year drought, most also include that the last big rain in the off season didn't count against it, and we, like you said, have been in a drought already for 4-5 years. So, even the doomsayers seem to think it would only last 5 more, tops, and all that is mostly just worst case scenario guessing. Not that 5 more years of drought wouldn't continue to have profound effects, but... anyway.

Also, the way the water has been managed through this drought, certain people in charge of that should probably be told worst case scenarios just so that things aren't abused in general, regarding water supply.

I am still expecting a wet winter this year. We shall see.

DaDakota · Oct 18, 2011

What is most troubling is that we can usually count on a tropical storm or two to help fill the lakes in the summer and early fall, we got nothing this year, and it has been a while since the tropics gave us much rain....which is not good news at all.

DD

marks0223 · Oct 18, 2011

CrazyDave · Oct 18, 2011

DaDakota said: ↑

What is most troubling is that we can usually count on a tropical storm or two to help fill the lakes in the summer and early fall, we got nothing this year, and it has been a while since the tropics gave us much rain....which is not good news at all.

DD
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From what i understand, it's rain in the spring that generally fills the lakes, though 2 years back it did start in October and didn't stop until February. No such luck so far this year, but I got hope.

leroy · Nov 15, 2011

May have gotten close to an inch today in N.Austin/Round Rock. First time I've seen and heard lightening in some time.

My family rescued 2 dogs this year...one in April and the other in September. We have no idea how they react to thunderstorms.

Uprising · Dec 4, 2011

Wide Spread rain throughout Texas. Nice seeing it.

So far, the last couple of months have been a nice turn around.

arkoe · Dec 4, 2011

Thunderstorms were rather disappointing in my neck of the woods.

Will hope for better tonight and tomorrow.

got em COACH · Dec 4, 2011

Uprising said: ↑

Wide Spread rain throughout Texas. Nice seeing it.

So far, the last couple of months have been a nice turn around.

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Yay bring on the

This year i'm stocking up smoke bombs for some much needed pranks come april fools

rimrocker · Dec 5, 2011

Sorry to rain on the parade, but y'all need to check the optimism.

Devastating 2011 fire season ends, but new one begins
Texas Forest Service has to do accounting
http://www.reporternews.com/news/2011/nov/30/no-headline---fire_seasons/

Posted November 30, 2011 at 11 p.m.

Today marks the start of the 2012 wildfire season, meaning the 2011 fire season — one of the costliest and most destructive in Texas history — is officially in the books.

But the distinction is largely bureaucratic and has nothing to do with the end of the critical fire danger, said April Saginor, spokeswoman for the Texas Forest Service.

"Fire conditions are the same (today) that they were on Wednesday. We just have to end the season at some point so we can do the accounting," she said. "We are closing out the 2011 incident, but we're already mobilizing people for the 2012 incident."

The accounting to be done is formidable.

Across Texas during the past 378-day fire season, which began Nov. 15, 2010, nearly 4 million acres and more than 2,900 homes were burned in more than 29,500 wildfires. More than 40 percent of all wildfires that occurred in the U.S. — and nearly half of the total acreage burned — were in Texas.

Of the 10 largest fires in state history, six of them occurred in April of this year.

Firefighters from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, Canada and the U.S. Virgin Islands have come to Texas to help battle the historic number of blazes. Firefighting aircraft have dropped more than 34 million gallons of water and fire r****dant during more than 54,000 missions.

The price tag for all this? A cool $337 million.

"That's easily the most money we've ever spent on fire suppression in a single fire season," Saginor said.

The true cost of the fire season could take years to calculate, she said. The forest service doesn't keep records on actual property damage, and it could take the various insurance companies involved years to finalize the tally on replacing the more than 5,700 structures that were destroyed this year.

For instance, September's Bastrop County fire destroyed 1,649 homes. According to city-data.com, the average price for a home in Bastrop County is more than $225,000. That single fire — which measured only 34,000 acres, roughly 10 percent of the size of 2011's largest — eventually could wind up with a damage estimate of more than $370 million.

In terms of federal assistance, Saginor said Texas is eligible for a maximum reimbursement of only $39 million, meaning the state will be left with a bill for more than $298 million.

"Thankfully, the Legislature has been good to us in the past," she said.

Texas lawmakers may want to throw a little extra funding the forest service's way, especially if Gary Bennett's predictions for the 2012 season come true.

Bennett, the TFS incident commander at the state's command post in Merkel, said the long-range weather forecast paints a dire picture for the coming year. An ongoing drought is expected to continue well into next year, and some meteorologists are saying it could last for a decade.

"We're in another La Niña pattern, like we were last year, so we're expecting more hot, dry winds and high temperatures," Bennett said. "Except last year we had a lot of rainfall, and this year we've had very little. I'd say we're in worse shape heading into the new year than we were last year."

Bennett said that in November 2010, there was a lot more greenery showing across the state. Despite some recent rainfall — Bennett said it's too little, too late to make a dent in the drought conditions — fuel moisture is still very low.

"Everything is sitting there cured up and ready to go like a tinder box, for when we get those low humidities and high winds early next year," he said. He said it took until late summer for conditions to become as dry as they are right now.

Things have been quiet out in Merkel for about a month now, Bennett said, allowing the forest service to release most of the out-of-state resources that have been stationed throughout the area.

Fires still have been breaking out, but higher humidity and lower temperatures have helped local fire departments contain them quickly.

"We have been able to send quite a few people home, but we still have a few folks pre-positioned in places in case things kick off. We've got folks in Fort Stockton and Lubbock, just waiting," he said.

"Based on what we're seeing, we think things are really going to start rolling in late December, early January. That's when we'll start to build the command post back up with resources," Bennett said.
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With all the stressed vegetation from last year never really recovering or just flat out dying, there will be prime conditions for fires shortly. A number of people in my office (including me) have standing invitations to go to Texas anytime after Christmas. Like last year, it will start in West Texas, but fires will be earlier and more constant in East Texas this year, especially since that is where most of the arsonists are.

When I spent September in Longview, I had never seen indices like that. Heck, I had never seen indices close to as bad as we had during that time frame. You don't recover with just a few showers here and there. You need a significant sustained change in the weather, like 40 days and 40 nights type change.

What people need to understand is that as of now, everyone in Texas lives in a fire-prone ecosystem. It wasn't always that way and was never that way in East Texas, but that is the reality now. You have to adjust the way you think about fire and the potential danger it presents. You can't just go weld in your backyard or shoot off fireworks anymore.

rimrocker · Dec 21, 2011

I think this may be a low estimate.

Texas may have lost 10% of its trees
By Brenda Bell

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
http://www.statesman.com/news/texas/texas-may-have-lost-10-of-its-trees-2041937.html

The current Texas drought has killed as many as 500 million trees 10 percent of the state's forest cover and the end is not in sight, according to the Texas Forest Service. Some of the hardest-hit areas are in Central Texas.

The numbers are preliminary, the first results from an unprecedented statewide survey of tree mortality across 63 million acres of forest land this year.

They don't include trees lost to drought-induced wildfire — an estimated 1.5 million trees burned in the Bastrop Labor Day fires alone — or trees that have succumbed to heat and thirst in urban areas.

Though the estimated range of dead trees varies widely — from a low of 100 million to a high of 500 million — the visible evidence of the die-off is still "very shocking," said Tom Boggus, director of the Texas Forest Service. "It's a significant change in the landscape."

And the stress of the past year of record-setting heat, high winds and low rainfall will continue to take its toll on living trees, whether or not the drought continues as forecast for at least another six months, because they have been too weakened to survive.

"We recognize that the mortality will increase even if it started raining," said Burl Carraway, head of sustainable forestry for the Forest Service.

The agency plans to use satellite imagery to firm up its ballpark estimate of tree loss in the spring, when budding leaves will identify which trees simply went into early dormancy this year and which are no longer among the living.

Foresters say the drought has decimated large numbers of tough native species such as ashe juniper (commonly referred to as cedar), cedar elm, post oaks and the loblolly pines of East Texas.

Three multicounty areas, including one in Central Texas, appear to be the hardest hit.

Western Bastrop and eastern Caldwell counties have seen "extensive mortality among cedars and post oaks," the Forest Service said.

Ashe junipers have been decimated in Sutton, Crockett, western Kimble and eastern Pecos counties.

Loblolly pines — the state's most valuable commercial timber crop, used for lumber, pulp and paper products — are dying in Harris, Montgomery, Grimes, Madison and Leon counties.

Carraway said about two-thirds of the pine seedlings newly planted by timber companies in East Texas died this year. About half the seedlings planted two seasons ago have also died.

"They'll plant again next year," he said. "Forests are very resilient."

In the Bastrop burn area, he said, "all kinds of sprouts are coming back."

The survey is based on the collective reports of local forestry professionals who were asked to measure the drought's toll in their areas.

They were asked to focus only on trees that had died from the 2011 drought and exclude "background mortality" from earlier droughts or drought-aided diseases, such as oak wilt.

Only trees of 5 inches or more in diameter, the point at which saplings become trees, were counted.

There are an estimated 4.9 billion trees of that size in Texas, he said.

To gauge tree loss over time, the Forest Service relies on its Forest Inventory and Analysis program, a federally funded ongoing census of the state's forest lands.

Because so many trees lost their leaves early this year, going into dormancy to reduce stress, the agency originally planned to do its drought survey this spring, when it will be easier to identify which trees are dead.

But too many people, including state officials, were asking about the trees to wait any longer, Carraway said.

"There were too many questions," he said. "The decision-makers wanted to know what's going on."
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HombreDeHierro · Dec 21, 2011

looks like the hunting trip may just turn into a camping trip

drought probably reduced deer populations like mad

DaDakota · Dec 21, 2011

Losing all those Cedar trees is ok by me.

DD

rimrocker · Dec 21, 2011

DaDakota said: ↑

Losing all those Cedar trees is ok by me.

DD
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Which means drier soils, which will make it tougher for trees to reestablish where there is high mortality.

DaDakota · Dec 21, 2011

rimrocker said: ↑

Which means drier soils, which will make it tougher for trees to reestablish where there is high mortality.
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Actually I think the opposite, Cedar trees drink more than any other species of tree IIRC, they soak up tons of water, causing other trees not to be able to compete.

It would be great if trees that used to be prevelant in this area were replanted in their place.

DD

pgabriel · Feb 1, 2012

http://blog.chron.com/txpotomac/201...experts-predict-intensified-drought-in-texas/

i guess its gonna get dry but its been raining pretty well. draught expected to intensify

The extreme drought gripping Texas and the rest of the Southwest is likely to intensify, according to a panel of climate experts from Columbia University.

Richard Seager, an expert on droughts in North America, told a Washington audience that the Texas drought of the past decade has been the continent’s most serious.

The luckiest three percent of the state’s land is rated as having a “severe drought,” said Lisa Goddard, an expert on climate prediction. Another 88% of the state is considered “exceptional.”

The drought can be attributed to the La Nina phenomenon, a cooling pattern in the Pacific Ocean, in combination with a warming pattern in the Atlantic Ocean, panelists marking the second annual Climate Science Day explained.

However, the drought is also part of a “host of problems out there that we’re creating for ourselves,” Seager said, referring to global warming. He added that we can expect weather extremes, especially the drought, to intensify, and for the Southwestern states to become more arid with time.

The panelists explained that it is hard to determine if global warming is the precise reason for the drought. At this point, researchers are studying the warm Atlantic waters to figure out how much of the nation’s extreme weather can be contributed to global warming and how much is from the natural warming pattern.

Seager made a comparison to Barry Bonds’ record breaking season.

You wouldn’t be able to pick out one at-bat and determine if he hit a home run precisely because of steroids, he said; it’s easier, however, to look at his entire season and determine, yes, steroids were a factor.

Seager added that, while the extreme weather cannot be stopped, the level of intensity can certainly be minimized by reducing the amount of greenhouse gasses released into the atmosphere.

In the long run, Goddard said, it is important to promote research so scientists can make important, accurate predictions. Research, she said, will help scientists reach the point where they can make fuller, more reliable estimates of risk or opportunity, which will put leaders in better positions to make decisions for the future.
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Dr of Dunk · Feb 1, 2012

DaDakota said: ↑

Actually I think the opposite, Cedar trees drink more than any other species of tree IIRC, they soak up tons of water, causing other trees not to be able to compete.

It would be great if trees that used to be prevelant in this area were replanted in their place.

DD
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Where are you getting your info? A&M researched this a few years ago and found oaks guzzle more water than cedar trees do. Trees we call "cedar" have been around here for thousands of years - they're native to Texas.

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