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Drought Worsens in Southeast U.S.

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Post by WxFreak 2012-04-30, 11:14 am


Hydrologic Vulnerability Assessment - Drought
4:00 p.m. Tuesday, April 17, 2012

… Lack of rainfall during the month of March over much of the Southeast has helped to intensify the drought in parts of Alabama and South Carolina, and much of Georgia and Florida …
Typically each year the Southeast usually sees significant improvement in its water resource situation during the month of March. Climatologically, March can produce flooding as well as beneficial recharge to reservoirs, rivers, and groundwater. This has not been a typical year, and therefore, a variety of factors have led to the deterioration of water resource conditions. One factor that led to deteriorating conditions was the above-normal temperatures over the eastern half of the country. Although the warmth was more pronounced across the upper plains with respect to the difference in average temperature, the effects were felt in the Southeast. One impact of that has been the early greening up of plants. Increased evapotranspiration rates and below-normal precipitation over the impacted area have led to a quickly deteriorating situation.

Reservoirs
One of the lagging indicators around a drought is that of the reservoirs. Initial drought conditions were not as bad as they had been in the past, and therefore, the impact of a dry March has not been as pronounced. Unfortunately, inflows into the system are well below normal.

Looking Ahead
The forecast for the May, June, and July time frame looks similar to what the Southeast is experiencing now. With no large-scale weather pattern, there is still a great deal of uncertainty in the forecast. With initial conditions being so dire right now, below-normal precipitation would produce significant problems across many of the areas already dealing with drought conditions, causing reservoirs to fall more quickly than in the past. Even normal rainfall will not help conditions significantly. Above-normal rainfall will be needed to improve conditions. It takes time to get into drought and it will take time to come out of one. We had fall rains during 2009 that brought much of the southeast out of our last drought that were not predicted very well by forecasters in the preceding summer. So it is possible to come out of the drought at any time, it is just not likely during the outlook period.
WxFreak
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Post by Reb 2012-04-30, 11:32 am

yuck i want some rain
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Post by WxFreak 2012-04-30, 11:51 am

Typically, May is the “make it or break it” month when it comes to a summer drought. If May is dry, and you go into the summer months (June, July, August) with dry soil, then the drought is likely to linger until tropical weather becomes more active later in the summer or fall. Drought is hard to break in the summer because of the lack of synoptic systems (low pressures/fronts). We’re more dependent on air mass type thunderstorms. But if the ground is already parched, then it’s more difficult to get the typical daily thunderstorms to develop, simply because there is less moisture available from the ground and vegetation to generate rain. It’s a vicious cycle of drought feeding on itself, and locking itself in for the summer. That being said, if we had some decent storm systems in May, it could help the situation. But right now, the pattern isn’t looking to optimistic.

So far, we’ve been lucky in East Tennessee. We’ve had more rain than areas to our west and south. However, if we remain surrounded by dry and/or drought conditions, it’s just a matter of time before it spreads into our area.

I’m certainly not an expert on this—just speaking from past experience
WxFreak
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