When Hurricane Harvey miss up to 60 inch of water over southeastern Texas , who would have guessed the body politic would be experience a drought less than half a class later on ?
Certainly not John Nielsen - Gammon , the state climatologist and a professor at Texas A&M University . He ’s been Texas ’ climatologist for about 20 years , and he did n’t anticipate a drouth to play along Hurricane Harvey . That being said , it ’s not like he ’s incisively surprised , either .
After all , drouth is a normal occurrence in the Department of State . This type of event typically follows La Niña , and that ’s what the Tropical Pacific is currently go through . During La Niña , which sees a cooling effect throughout the Pacific , Texasseesdrier and warmer atmospheric condition . That means less rainwater . The thing that gets Nielsen - Gammon , however , is that the dry winter extends back to September . La Niña , on the other hand , does n’t begin until November .
“ La Niña does n’t typically impact our weather condition that time of year , ” he told Earther .
And this winter dry spell has lasted quite the while in some constituent of the state . In North Texas , barely any rainfall has hit the ground in more than 100 days , accord to the National Weather Service . The region is so teetotal that it ’s under awildfire warning . These are parts of the state that miss the ire of Hurricane Harvey . However , the Beaumont - Port Arthur arena , where Harvey rain break late records , has n’t been so lucky to miss the drought ’s wrath ( it ’s in moderate drought ) .
Nearly 50 percentage of the United States Department of State is in drought right now , agree to the U.S. Drought Monitor . When include region that are “ abnormally dry , ” that identification number jumps to 85 pct . The statistics are a consummate demarcation to the atmospheric condition last yr around this time when most of the state was in the clear .
It ’s too early to have sex how the drouth compares to the historical trend , but Nielsen - Gammon says it ’s not particularly unusual . And do n’t go pointing to climate modification just yet . A connection is n’t unmortgaged , specially give the impacts from La Niña , but climate change will make Texas droughts more common .
The drouth is suffer one sector in particular : agriculture . The wintertime wheat farmers institute in the fall is have a hard time growing without any rain , Nielsen - Gammon explained . And ranchers are turning more and more to hay to feed their cattle instead of the grass that should be shoot more scrumptiously .
Texas can expect to experience more drouth as the effect of clime change become more pronounced , but will the rain facilitate anticipate the waterlessness ? That ’s unclear , said Nielsen - Gammon .
What he does know is that we ’re likely to see more extreme events like Hurricane Harvey , but that does n’t necessarily remediate drouth . At a certain point in time , the land stops absorbing the rainfall , and it just runs off into stream or rivers . It ’s of no use to farmer and ranchers who really require frequent rain blueprint rather of just one giant bucket load .
That ’s the reality for Texans today , and the uncertainty is just beginning . Harvey kill 68 people , and 500,000 cars flooded , according to a young Union report .
People are still dealing with those impacts well-nigh five months later . Now , they ’ve got a drought to deal with , too .
[ Texas Tribune ]
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