Drought Extraordinaire

(originally posted December 29th, 2005)

In a state known for it's bragging and doing everything bigger and better, it is unfortunate that Texas is doing so with the current drought statistics. It appears that officially, 2005 for North Texas will end as the fifth driest ever on record. We are running about 15-20 inches below normal on rainfall and some areas are even worse than that recording up to 25 inches below normal. Considering that we normally see around 38 inches per year, it practically hasn’t rained all year long. The driest stretches were the entire spring (really sucked as a stormchaser living around these parts) and from October through the end of December. Our current cilmatology as far as precipitation goes is similar to that of far west Texas or New Mexico.

We are at the highest end of the drought scale and this region is now in the “extreme” to “exceptional” range. I have never seen it this dry here in my entire life….and I thought 1996 and 1999 were pretty bad….lol! As a result, we have had devastating wildfires all across the area. A few days ago, we had major fires erupting everywhere and it stretched the entire region’s fire fighting resources to it’s breaking point. The town of Cross Plains, about 115 miles west of Fort Worth, was devestated. 90 homes and several other buildings, including a church, were destroyed. Two of the state's three fire deaths were reported there, including an 89-year-old bedridden grandmother.

In fact, I’m pretty pissed right now that the National Guard along with the National Forestry Service hasn’t been called into action as reserves and I certainly do not understand why we haven’t called for mutual aid from other states. This isn’t an exaggeration to say that we are setup for a major disaster here. We narrowly avoided it a few days ago and apparently nobody has heeded the warning. We need the same amount of forces setup here as they have in the western states when they are having all of their fire problems in the summer. They are fine there and can certainly spare their resources.

The future picture looks rather bleak with no relief on the horizon. Instead, we are primed for a repeat fire outbreak in the coming weeks as similar patterns that spawned all of the firestorms a few days ago will be present. In fact, a couple of systems look even stronger if the GFS model is correct. SW and W winds of 30-40 mph and gusty along with single digit humidities are likely every few days for the next week or so. We will certainly see more major fire outbreaks….and I fear that a major firestorm may erupt and get out of control due to a lack of resources. It would make what we saw a few days ago look like a campfire. Entire communities and towns could be burned to the ground and people die.

The only smallest glimmer of very faint hope is that the GFS is showing a deep trough on day 10 that would, if it verified, give us some rain to ease things a bit. But, that is a long ways off in a quirky computer model. As ol’ Harold Taft would say, “It don’t rain much in a drought”. The climate prediction center is also forecasting very dry conditions through March which is scary. I hope that they are wrong. If we end up with another dry spring and can’t replenish our reservoirs and aquafers, then we are going to be in some very serious, deep shit next year for water supplies. Imagine being limited to using only a certain amount of water per month with the consequence of not doing so being that your water gets cut off, get a hefty fine, or repeated violation result in jail time. I doubt many people could comprehend such drastic measures, but it is part of emergency contingency plans. It could easily get that bad if the drought continues well into 2006. It’s a scenario that’s been discussed and warned about for decades by the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Committee as the projected demand exceeds supply. Estimates for an extended severe drought has us running out of water in a relatively short period of time. We are behind on the number of reservoirs needed to prevent such a disaster.

But, in trying not to sound like such an alarmist and doomsday advocate, we do live in very close proximity to the Gulf Of Mexico. Upper air patterns do change and we usually see big storm systems digging south over the Rockies by February drawing all of that juicy air from the south and lifting it to produce significant rains. We have had a parade of storm systems moving across the country and we’ve just been terribly unlucky that they either skirt us too far north or move too fast to allow moisture return. We won’t need much if any alteration in the upper air pattern to get us back into some rainy weather. So, I’m cautiously optimistic that we can pull out of this. But, with 2004 and 2005 being the years of extreme and highly unusual weather events where everything has been abnormal, it would be foolish not to seriously consider that we may not pull out of this drought pattern either.

A drought index chart: http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/drmon.gif

Driest years on record (note the top nine are from the 50’s and earlier):
1) 17.91” – 1921
2) 17.97” – 1910
3) 18.11” – 1899
4) 18.55” – 1956
5) 18.97” – 2005
6) 19.09” – 1934
7) 19.55” – 1954
8) 19.65” – 1901
9) 20.11” – 1948
10) 20.46” – 1963
Driest years since the 1950’s drought (this is a scary comparison):
1) 18.97” – 2005
2) 20.46” – 1963
3) 22.08” – 1980
4) 22.23” – 1972
5) 23.59” – 1999

(data sources from the National Weather Service - Fort Worth Office)