Long term drought for Texas- :-(

[Kyle_in_Tex]

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/expert_assessment/season_drought.gif

Doesn't look good folks. I know some of you up in DFW region have been getting bad storms but not sure how much rain.

I purposely planted a very small garden this year. If it wasn't for a few "volunteers", I would only have 1 tomato plant. It seems only okra does ok in the clay soil during a drought. Oh, and of course the weeds.

Its been months since we've had any significant rain.

 

[StanR]

I was going to plant a food plot in Columbus, Tx... just to dry

 

[EddieWalker]

I put in my food plot two weeks ago. I've had one rain of a quarter inch since then, and some of my plants are starting to come up. Forecast for the last week was for a chance of rain, with one day that it was supposed to be real bad. Of course, the storm split and I never got a drop.

Forecast for the entire week was 20 to 30 percent for rain, but all of a sudden, tomorrow jumped up to 70 percent!!!!!!!! I can't believe how excited I am that it might actually rain.

Eddie

 

[Bird]

Yep, it's been dry. I figure I've gotten the following amounts so far this year:

Jan. - 1.67"
Feb. - 1.59"
Mar. - 0.10"
Apr. - 2.11"

Of course, of the 2.11" this month, 1.58" of it was on the 11th when we had the high winds and hail. The NWS shows Denton got .38" last night. I figure my gauge had about .07". We're still having forecasts of 30-40% chance of showers and thunderstorms, so we're hoping. But of course I'd rather it would stay dry than have the tornadoes, hail, and wind that some have had.

 

[jinman]

I don't know how I've lucked out, but we have had nice rain and no damaging wind or hail (KNOCK ON WOOD!). The only negatives to last night's storm here were a little nickel sized hail (tough on young tomato plants) and I noticed I had two stopped up gutter downspouts. Other than that, we got another 3/4" of rain and it looks like we could get more today. Cleaning up the mud the construction crew tracks in is a bit of a pain, but we do have plastic down, so that's not as bad as it could be.

 

[texasjohn]

I was very small during the drought of the mid 50's and it made an impression on me. Uncles were raising goats and sheep on the Edward's Plateau. I've feared a return ever since... I suppose like depression raised youth fear a repeat as well.

It's been way dry for years and I fear that this trend my continue for all too long. I believe the drought map projection. My uncles told me in later years that it would cloud up and it looked like it just HAD to rain, but wouldn't, at least not significantly.

Going to have to seriously consider cutting cow herd in half, or getting out completely.

 

[Bird]

I was very small during the drought of the mid 50's and it made an impression on me.

I was 16 and working in my dad's service station in Marietta, OK, when the 1956 drought occurred. The Chevrolet dealership next door to our station went under and shut down. A lot of farmers in the area were in dire straits. I remember hearing that water from Lake Texoma ruined a lot of car batteries in Dallas because of the Red River's salt content. And by the end of that summer our business at the station had just about died. We were very fortunate to have a buyer want the place, even after looking over the books, and that's when we moved to Texas.

 

[cherokeecowboy]

It's not looking good. I'm considering selling the whole herd as many of my neighbors have. We are still having to supplement with hay because we haven't had any rain. Not to mention another year of $100.00 round bales doesn't sound too appealing. I still remember the drought seven or so years ago. Hay was 100 bucks a roll and people were overjoyed to get corn stalk to feed.I ended up splitting the herd three times. to sell The only saving grace is that beef is paying top dollar at the moment.

 

[Western]

We are actually getting rain right now!! 3/4" so far. small hail and allot of wind though.

Looks like Bird is getting it pretty hard too in Corinth.

Eddie, looks like you may "get lucky" Monday night!

I haven't even tried a garden this year, a few things around the house, but that's it. Back in Feb, I watched a NOAA show on the projected drought due to El Nina (sp). And it has been awful dry.

Weird thing: I had a dozer out 2 weeks ago to build a pad site, he got down 18" and it was wet enough to make a ball of dirt in your fist, surprised both of us since it hasn't rained since the last ice storm in early Feb.

I also have a buddy in Hico that has sold allot of hay on projected cuts this year to a feed store, they know it's coming.

If I do a summer plot this year, it will probably be Milo and mostly for erosion control, it's cheap. Deer will eat the young shoot's and the seed heads sooooo

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

State Drought Monitor

Here's the state link to show how bad we have it. We are D4 exceptional.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Our local paper had an article about some old timers talking about the 50's drought and that it had lasted 7 years. They claim we are in the 7th year of the current drought.

Looks like a tornado just went north of Brownwood. Pray everyone is OK.

Its really bad when you have to get tornados and hail just to get rain. Down here floods are usually caused by remnants of hurricanes.

 

[EastTexFrank]

We're supposed to get some "bad stuff" Monday night and Tuesday night.

We've not had much rain in my part of East Texas either. That wind that has been blowing for weeks and weeks and months and months hasn't helped either. At times like these you really appreciate the water well. The yard and the veggie gardens seem to be doing good but it's real hot real early.

At the farm we have spring fed ponds and a lake that seem to be holding up but the grass isn't looking too good for this time of the year. I honestly don't know if we will get any hay worth cutting this year which means that we will be looking to buy or unload some cows later on.

 

[Bird]

Last night, that little storm arrived here about 7:19 p.m., the wind was really whipping the trees, the city's warning siren was blaring, then a downpour, I don't think we had any hail bigger than pea sized, and maybe no damage. The initial storm only put about 0.30" of rain in my gauge, then later we got a lighter rain for a total of about 0.78". I see the NWS shows Denton at 1.14" before midnight and then later another 0.08". That doesn't surprise me because the radar showed it to be a little stronger storm just north of us.

Sure glad I decided to go ahead and mow the yard yesterday.

 

[weldingisfun]

It is bad.:thumbdown: Only 5.3 inches so far this year.
Jan 3.9
Feb 0.7
Mar 0.1
Apr 0.6 But hey, we still have five days left in the month.:thumbsup:

 

[The Dougster]

I well remember the drought of the 1950's and our current weather reminds me of those terrible years. The dust storms were awful! I grew up in San Saba County...
To date, we have two stock tanks that are nothing but dust bowls.. have sold off about half of our cattle and if it doesn't rain soon, will sell the rest. Simply can't afford the supplemental feed... <supermegasigh>

 

[Western]

We ended up with just over 1" after the last storm around 1am (larger hail). I saw where the storm actually made it further into NE Texas than they predicted for last night. You guys over there are supposed to get more this evening.

At least the firefighters over around Possum Kingdom got some much needed help too. Can you imagine what the folks with cattle over there are dealing with?? sale barns will be full.

 

[jinman]

Dennis, we just got sprinkled on last night as the main storm crossed over south of us between Decatur and Alvord as it headed eastward. I thought we would get another good shower, but it didn't happen.

 

[dooleysm]

I hate to hear about all this when we are getting pummelled with rain up here. Between Friday evening and Sunday afternoon I had 5.25" at my house. We're starting to have lots of roads closed due to high water. Rain is forecast now through Thursday, and we just had a big storm push through this morning. They were saying late last week that the rivers wouldn't crest until late this week. The 10" overflow pipe on my 1/2 acre pond is moving just about all the water it's capable of moving.

 

[cherokeecowboy]

We got some rain last night but not enough to brag about. I've got some very large trees down this morning from it. More to come they say. We've had violent storms this week and hardly any rain out of it. We are D3-D4 on that chart.

 

[Uncle Doug]

Dry down here on the SE gulf coast. The gumbo soil cracks and splits when dry. Looks like late August already with brown grass and cracks in the soil. The heavy dew's we get here on the gulf coast is the only thing keeping the grass growing.

Hay and cattle people not hurting too much yet but if it keeps up they sure will.

Did not even try a garden this year.