Drought to Deepen in Texas (NOAA Winter Forecast)

[hpcatx]

NOAA released their 2011-2012 winter forecast today. We're in for a warmer, drier than average winter, with our drought to unfortunately only deepen.

“The evolving La Niña will shape this winter,” said Halpert. La Nina was a major driver of last winter’s weather when the drought became established in Texas and began to spread into the southern Plains. David Brown, NOAA’s regional climate services director for its Southern Region, said extreme to exceptional drought now covers 91% of Texas, 87% of Oklahoma, and 63% of New Mexico. The economic toll from the drought has reached $5 billion in Texas and $1.5 billion in Oklahoma.
Read the full Washing Post story.

Temperature:

Precipitation:

Read the full NOAA article here.

[sjfcontrol]

Does that mean I won't have to "Wrap My Pipes" this winter??

[The Annoyed Man]

Wonderful.

[UpTheIrons]

Well, gee. Thanks for that report of sunshine, rainbows and unicorns!

The old joke is usually "You must not be payin' the preacher enough if'n it ain't rainin'", but I'm starting to get strange looks from folks even with praying for rain weekly! This news isn't going to help matters...

[Divided Attention]

Unfortunately the fleas will be happy...

[Oldgringo]

It's Bush's fault and I'm .

[Heartland Patriot]

It's Bush's fault and I'm .

If it's Bush's fault, then I bet Al Gore will save us!

[sugar land dave]

Oh well! My citrus trees will be happy!

[C-dub]

Unfortunately the fleas will be happy...

No kidding. I guess I'll have to treat the yard and the dogs again.

[fulano]

Got my Stage 3 water conservation rules in the mail this week.

Change from twice a week of watering to twice a month.

But....got an inch of rain last night

[boba]

It's not bad enough we're facing another Great Depression. We may have another Dust Bowl too?

[Commander]

I Attended a meeting of the Rockwall City Council last week where the head of the North Texas Municipal Water District discussed the drought and the situation at Lake Lavon. Lake Lavon supplies a number of cities around Dallas such as Garland, Mesquite, Rockwall, Wylie, etc

He said that computer models show that we are in what he called "the drought of record" which lasted seven years....that projects out to 2015 before it breaks. Now the real scary stuff- Lake Lavon is at 479.6 feet. At 475 feet, stage 4 water restrictions kick in. No outside watering of any kind and reductions in the amount of water supplied to the customer cities. At 470 feet, the lake is below the intakes. We're just 9 feet away from that.

[ajwakeboarder]

Great. My favorite thing to do weather permitting is Wakeboard. I couldn't do much of that much last summer because all the lakes shut down. Now it looks like i won't be able to next summer either Can't we just pipe water from the flood areas to the drought areas?

[sjfcontrol]

Can't we just pipe water from the flood areas to the drought areas?

Southern California imports up to 85% of its water from Northern California and the Colorado River Basin.

The Colorado River Aqueduct, or CRA, is a 242 mi (389 km) water conveyance in Southern California in the United States, operated by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD). The aqueduct impounds water from the Colorado River at Lake Havasu on the California-Arizona border west across the Mojave and Colorado deserts to the east side of the Santa Ana Mountains. It is one of the primary sources of drinking water for Southern California.

The system is composed of two reservoirs, five pumping stations, 63 mi (101 km) of canals, 92 mi (148 km) of tunnels, and 84 mi (135 km) of buried conduit and siphons. Average annual throughput is 1,200,000 acre·ft (1.5 km3).

Note that the canals cross over two deserts.

It amazes me that Texas seems to depend on rainfall and lake levels for its water supplies.
McKinney has implemented year-round water conservation rules regardless of the lake levels. This means even when the lakes are overflowing, and they're dumping water, we have to restrict our usage. Go figure...