US Drought Near An Historic Low

Climate experts tell us that the US is experiencing a near unprecedented drought, when in fact it is the exact opposite. US drought coverage is near historic lows.

Compare vs. 80 years ago

OctoberDrought1934-2014

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10 Responses to US Drought Near An Historic Low

  1. John F. Hultquist says:

    The largest swath of red (severe drought) on the 2014 map is a section of the Great State of Washington east of the Cascade Mountains and west of the upslope into the Bitterroot Range. I live in this area and am known as “Dry Side John” by my associates in the Puget Sound (seattle+) area.
    Orchards, vineyards, and field crops in this area have had an exceptionally productive year — because of irrigation from the rivers fed by mountain snow and rain.
    The index “ … is considered most effective for unirrigated cropland.
    http://www.drought.gov/drought/content/products-current-drought-and-monitoring-drought-indicators/palmer-drought-severity-index

    After WWII the Columbia Basin Project changed eastern Washington:
    http://www.usbr.gov/projects/Project.jsp?proj_Name=Columbia%20Basin%20Project
    The Act was 1943 and the 1950s and 1960 were active periods on the land.

    • dp says:

      I live in Oroville, WA and it’s raining. Send some dry this way!

    • rah says:

      A little bit of Washington history that most probably don’t know about. The Aircraft Carrier USS Lexington CV-2, supplied electrical power to the city of Tacoma 17 Dec 1929 to 16 Jan 1930 due to a drought that had lowered the water levels on the reservoirs on the Nisqually and Skokomish rivers to the point where the hydroelectric units could not supply nearly enough power to meet demand.

      The Lexington and her sister ship USS Saratoga CV-3 had been converted to aircraft carriers from their original design to be Battle Cruisers (A Battle Cruiser is a ship almost the size of a battleship with similar heavy armament but with much lighter armor. They were designed to be large, heavily armed ships, lighter and thus much faster and more maneuverable than a battleship) while being built as a result of the Washington Naval treaties.

      Both ships became the experimental workhorses for development of modern carrier operations in the US Navy. They had been built with propulsion machinery using the relatively expensive turbo-electric system where the boilers provided steam to drive turbines which in turn drove huge generators which supplied electricity to electric motors that drove the propellers. This system was much more responsive to throttle commands than the direct steam driven turbine machinery used on most larger ships of the day. IOW, both ships were like hot rods as compared to other ships of their tonnage. But when laying too, their power plants could produce tremendous amounts of electricity that could be diverted what ever use it was needed for. And so the Lexington, for a month was docked and served as a oil fired electrical power station for the people of Tacoma during their time of need.
      http://historius.narod.ru/foto/carriers/usa/lexington-12.jpg

      • nielszoo says:

        Very cool piece of history. Thanks for sharing, I’d never heard that before.

        • rah says:

          The Navy didn’t just do it out of the goodness of their hearts. Nor were they ordered to Tacoma to do it due to political pressure. They figured it would be good PR but most importantly as far as the Navy brass were concerned it provided an opportunity to do detailed static testing on the turbine-electric drive generator system during extended full power operation which could not be accomplished when the ship was underway.

          During the depression the Navy was very conscious of fuel savings and so even during full scale war games over those tough economic times they rarely ran their large ships at even flank speed which was the top speed found on most of the engine room telegraphs. So on the engine room telegraphs there was no setting for the actual full power most of the ships and submarines propulsion systems were capable of. Once WW II started most ships just rang up flank speed twice to indicate the con wanted the very top speed capable and usually that was called “emergency” speed. Here is the Navy’s after action report on the incident: http://www.researcheratlarge.com/Ships/CV2/Tacoma/CV2_rep1.html

  2. mjc says:

    Actually, they are telling the truth. It is unprecedented. On the low end of the scale!
    Other than California, there isn’t much of the country that is in drought conditions and it has been a very long time since that has happened, to this level.

    • Phil Jones says:

      Yep… That’s why Progressive lunatics focus only on CA in terms of drought…

      Forget about the other 90% of the nation plus Alaska… Canada… And European nations which all have good rain data…

  3. Hugh K says:

    Is there really such a thing as “climate experts”. Even self-proclaimed “climate experts” are scratching their collective heads over the consecutive 18 year temp doldrums. If these climate alarmists were truly “experts”, they wouldn’t have to resort to fanciful adjustments, personal attacks on those holding opposing views and/or flat out scare mongering to make a living.
    Conversely, honest climate scientists admit there is much they still don’t understand about our climate. Based on this limited knowledge, these true climate scientists are rightfully hesitant to make climate predictions 40 years down the road, much less call themselves “experts”.
    Yet, who does our President and his fawning media rely on for climate info? Liars of a feather….
    Onward thru’ the fog.

  4. gregole says:

    Here in generally dry Arizona, Tempe, Arizona specifically, we have had an abundance all summer of mosquitoes. I haven’t seen anything like it for the 19 years I’ve lived here. There are at least two circling me in my study as I write this.

    http://www.maricopa.gov/EnvSvc/VectorControl/Mosquitos/MosqInfo.aspx

    …All mosquitoes must have water to complete their life cycle. Stagnant water left from monsoon rains can increase mosquito activity. Rain and irrigation water can produce hundreds of thousands of mosquitoes if larva are allowed to stand as little as three days.

    We have had a string of reasonably regular monsoon rains, one following the other; but total rainfall is pretty much within bounds. But man was it humid here this summer. Anyhow, a warm and “moderately moist” summer for Az.

  5. brockway32 says:

    It would be nice to get rid of at least part of the 1930s drought blip. Oh, of secondary importance, and really as an afterthought, there is still the scientific issue of why the blip?

    But first things first, let’s get rid of the blip…*poof*

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