More Wooder
Via Atrios, the NY Times looks into the drought in the Southeast.
For the better part of 18 months, cloudless blue skies and high temperatures have shriveled crops and bronzed lawns from North Carolina to Alabama, quietly creating what David E. Stooksbury, the state climatologist of Georgia, has dubbed “the Rodney Dangerfield of natural disasters,” a reference to that comedian’s repeated lament that he got “no respect.”
“People pay attention to hurricanes,” Mr. Stooksbury said. “They pay attention to tornadoes and earthquakes. But a drought will sneak up on you.”
Tell me about it. Atrios is a bit flip (IMO) writing “Potential regional catastrophic water issues always seem to be lurking in the realm of possibility but never quite materialize,” but the fact remains that Southeastern Pennsylvania is itself in a moderate drought. I honestly can’t quite recall the last time the rain really came down: it seems last summer, there was an afternoon downpour every day. However, our winter was extremely dry, leading the nearby ski resorts to rely more heavily on their snow machines. I mean for Pete’s Sake it was nearly 90 degrees on New Year’s Day. And here we are in the middle of October, and the weathers has gone from highs of 80-90 to lows of 60-70. Dry and hot.
It seems that it really IS always sunny in Philadelphia. Problem is, we really COULD use a little rain.
October 16th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
here on the frozen tundra we where way under normal for rainfall all year. It was very dry & there where water restrictions in several cities. Then came August, normally a very dry month. We have received 50% of a normal YEARS worth of rain in the last 60 days. It has rained 17 of the last 19 days.
This is just weird.