Texas governor declares states of emergency, more severe weather expected

Ellen Wulfhorst in Reuters: The governor of Texas on Monday declared states of disaster in 24 counties, citing the severe weather and flash flooding that have killed at least two people. The state has been pounded by tornadoes, heavy rainfall, thunderstorms and flooding that forced evacuations and rooftop rescues and left thousands of residents without electrical power.

In declaring the states of disaster in 24 counties, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said: “The State of Texas has taken brisk action in dispatching all available resources to aid those affected by this severe weather system.

“My thoughts and prayers are with all the communities that are suffering as a result of this weather disaster, and I am grateful for the first responders who have worked tirelessly to provide shelter, care and resources to all impacted areas," he said.

Widespread severe thunderstorms were forecast for Monday in north-central and northeast Texas and southern Oklahoma, likely bringing destructive winds, tornadoes and hail, the National Weather Service said.

The Weather Service issued severe thunderstorm and flash-flood warnings as well as tornado watches throughout the region....

A supercell thunderstorm near Teague, Texas, in 2011. Shot by Runningonbrains, public domain

Ten missing in possible Texas tornado

ABC News: At least 10 adults are unaccounted for after a possible tornado hit the East Texas town of Van, injuring more than two dozen people. Van Zandt County Fire Marshal Chuck Allen said Monday that 26 people were transported to hospitals by emergency personnel. Allen says an unknown number of others went by private vehicle for care after Sunday night's storm.

He had no further details on the 10 missing people in Van, a town of about 2,600 located 70 miles southeast of Dallas. Allen says 30 percent of Van has damage and about 50 people were in a shelter at a church.

The National Weather Service believes at least one tornado hit Van, with damage to be surveyed Monday.

Oncor (ON'-kor) reported nearly 11,000 customers without electricity Monday, including the Van area. Officials say two groups of people in North Texas had to be rescued by helicopters after rising floodwaters left them stranded.

Denton County Deputy Fire Marshal Marc Dodd says a Texas National Guard helicopter airlifted four adults and one infant on Sunday from the roof of their home near the city of Krum.

Dodd says another helicopter rescued two adults near the city of Sanger from the roof of their pickup truck, which video showed was surrounded by rushing water. He says 10 others in the county had to evacuate their homes....

A 2007 tornado in Texas, shot by Bruce Haynie of the National Weather Service

The US Drought Monitor

The Monitor says: During the past 7-days, heavy rain (greater than 2 inches) fell in parts of the Northeast, eastern North Carolina, the Florida peninsula, the Great Lakes region, northern and central portions of the Mississippi Valley, and parts of the southern Great Plains and Southwest. An unusually strong cold front for early July moved across the eastern contiguous U.S. early in the period, approaching the Atlantic Seaboard as a Category-2 hurricane (Arthur) was moving across the Outer Banks of North Carolina. As the hurricane accelerated to the northeast, it gradually became incorporated into the larger-scale cold front and associated low pressure system, resulting in heavy rains across portions of the Northeast. Meanwhile, the onset of the Southwest summer monsoon across Arizona and New Mexico brought moderate precipitation (0.5-2.0 inches) to portions of the Four Corners region.

...The Southwest and California: The initial moisture surges of the summer monsoon commenced on schedule across Arizona and New Mexico this past week. River Forecast Center rain gauge data depicts a few widely scattered 2-3 inch rainfall amounts, but much of Arizona and New Mexico reported moderate amounts of precipitation (0.5-2.0 inches). In northwest New Mexico, which missed out on the significant rainfall this past week, extreme drought (D3) was expanded eastward across all of San Juan County, and continuing across the western one-third of Rio Arriba County. In south-central Colorado, a one-category downgrade was made, based on very dry short-term SPI’s (less than -1.5), and on VIC soil moisture model considerations. In southeast Colorado (western Kiowa County), conditions are still deplorable with little vegetation on the ground, and there is also the occasional dust storm kicking up. In Otero County, where better moisture conditions exist, a one-category improvement was made to the depiction. In Baca County, a one-category improvement was rendered based on June-early July precipitation, SPI values near and slightly above zero, and reports that the wheat harvest is looking better than it has in this county for several years. No other modifications were made throughout the Southwest or California. As an important side note, according to the Federal Bureau of Reclamation, southern Nevada’s Lake Mead is expected to fall this week to its lowest level since 1937, when the manmade lake (the largest reservoir in the United States) was first being filled.....

To adapt to climate change in Texas, no ‘one size fits all’ solution

Shawna Reding in StateImpact: Texas is a state so huge that it experiences several different climate conditions, from the subtropical Eastern half (think swamps and hurricanes) to the semiarid West (desert and snow in the winter). As such, the state must wear a variety of hats as it navigates a changing climate.

A new study from Arizona State University says that because every region has a different climate, every region experiences climate change differently. So in combating climate change, each region must come up with a different strategy.

Matei Georgescu, one of the scientists who worked on the study, says that “local decisions can play a role” in decreasing effects of urban expansion to make conditions more livable. And Texas is no exception.

As cities burst at the seams from surges in population, those cities become pollution hubs that Georgescu says will “result in about one to two degrees Celcius warming” that will spread beyond city limits.

A number of Texas cities – including Austin, El Paso and Houston — already hold climate change mitigation meetings or acknowledge that they need to happen. Austin has a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, for instance, but only recently started to look at how the city will adapt to climate change. Georgescu says “cities are the focal points of adaptation because that’s where the greatest concentration of people are.”

Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist and professor from Texas Tech University,  says those localized meetings are crucial to meet varying regional needs. She says climate change exacerbates conditions already present in any given area in Texas. “What’s happening in Lubbock is different from Austin, which is different from Houston,” Hayhoe says....

A water tower in Marfa, Texas, shot by John Cummings, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

A Texan tragedy: ample oil, no water

Suzanne Goldenberg in the Guardian (UK): Beverly McGuire saw the warning signs before the [Barnhart, Texas] town well went dry: sand in the toilet bowl, the sputter of air in the tap, a pump working overtime to no effect. But it still did not prepare her for the night last month when she turned on the tap and discovered the tiny town where she had made her home for 35 years was out of water.  ...Across the south-west, residents of small communities like Barnhart are confronting the reality that something as basic as running water, as unthinking as turning on a tap, can no longer be taken for granted. Three years of drought, decades of overuse and now the oil industry's outsize demands on water for fracking are running down reservoirs and underground aquifers. And climate change is making things worse.

In Texas alone, about 30 communities could run out of water by the end of the year, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Nearly 15 million people are living under some form of water rationing, barred from freely sprinkling their lawns or refilling their swimming pools. In Barnhart's case, the well appears to have run dry because the water was being extracted for shale gas fracking. ...Water levels were dropping in his wells because of the vast amounts of water being pumped out of the Edwards-Trinity-Plateau Aquifer, a 34,000 sq mile water bearing formation. "They are sucking all of the water out of the ground, and there are just hundreds and hundreds of water trucks here every day bringing fresh water out of the wells," Owens said.

Meanwhile, residents in town complained, they were forced to live under water rationing. "I've got dead trees in my yard because I haven't been able to water them," said Glenda Kuykendall. "The state is mandating our water system to conserve water but why?... Getting one oil well fracked takes more water than the entire town can drink or use in a day."

...So what is a town like Barnhart to do? Fracking is a powerful drain on water supplies. In adjacent Crockett county, fracking accounts for up to 25% of water use, according to the groundwater conservation district. But Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, argues fracking is not the only reason Texas is going dry – and nor is the drought. The latest shocks to the water system come after decades of overuse by ranchers, cotton farmers, and fast-growing thirsty cities. "We have large urban centres sucking water out of west Texas to put on their lands. We have a huge agricultural community, and now we have fracking which is also using water," she said. And then there is climate change....

The water tower in Vega, Texas, shot by Christian M. Mericle, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

Human activity obscures the causes of Texas floods

Iowa Now (the University of Iowa): Periodic flooding in Texas—one the most flood-prone states in the nation—cannot be firmly linked to climate change due to numerous dams and other manmade structures introduced over the years, according to a University of Iowa study. The researchers also found that tropical cyclones are less responsible for major floods in the region than in the eastern United States.

The study, which looked at 70 years of records, appears in the August 2013 issue of the Journal of the American Water Resources Association. Lead author Gabriele Villarini, assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and assistant research engineer at IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering, indicates that although the problem is severe, the causes of Texas flooding are less clear.

“In this study, we examined the time series of the largest flood peaks every year from 62 stations in Texas with a record of at least 70 years,” he says. “We were interested in examining whether flood magnitudes changed during the study period and, if so, what was the cause of these changes. We found that most of the changes we detected were related to human modification of the catchments and more specifically to river regulation.”

He points out that there are more than 7,100 permitted dams in Texas, with some 2,000 of them designed for flood control. “We also examined the link between flooding and tropical cyclones. Tropical cyclones are an important flood agent with regionally varying effects. However, they are not associated with the largest flood events to the same degree we found for the eastern United States,” he says.

Historically, Texas experiences frequent flooding, resulting in numerous fatalities and extensive property damage. In fact, Villarini says, studies show that Texas led the nation in flood-related injuries and fatalities during the period from 1959 through 2005 and that Texas is the only state with fatalities occurring every year from 1960 through 2002...

NOAA photo of flooding from Hurricane Allison in 2001

Central Texas still in a severe drought

Texas WATR News: As the region heads into what is forecast to be a hot, dry summer, the Lower Colorado River Authority is reminding residents that Central Texas is still in the grasp of a severe drought and that everyone needs to do their part to conserve and use water wisely.

Because of the extended period of dry weather, the amount of water flowing into lakes Travis and Buchanan, called inflows, has been reduced to record-low levels for several years.

The lakes serve as reservoirs for more than a million Central Texans and businesses and industries throughout the lower Colorado River basin. The combined storage of both stands at 38 percent full, and weather forecasts hold little hope of significant relief in the near future.

“We’re not going to run out of water, but everyone needs to understand that this is a serious situation,” LCRA General Manager Becky Motal said. “It’s going to take a significant amount of rain over an extended period of time to refill our lakes. We don’t know when that will happen, so it’s critical that everyone follow the watering restrictions put in place by their local water providers and conserve water wherever and whenever they can.”...

Lake Travis in central Texas, during the 2011 drought, shot by Erik A. Ellison, Wikimedia Commons,  under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Flood threat persists in San Antonio after 2 killed

Katharine Lackey and William Cummings in USA Today: Two women died after being swept away by floodwaters after weekend rains deluged numerous roads in San Antonio, forcing more than 235 rescues by emergency workers who aided stranded motorists and homeowners at times using inflatable boats.

At least one teenage boy also was reported missing after Saturday's torrential rains, carried away while trying to cross the swollen Cibolo Creek in the San Antonio suburb of Schertz, authorities said.

The National Weather Service said the flash flood threat would persist until late Sunday morning though mostly cloudy weather with occasional thunderstorms and showers was expected to give way to partly sunny skies later in the day.

The rains left more than 200 residents of the Texas city stranded in cars and homes when water rose unexpectedly up to 4 feet in some spots. Traffic also was snarled, making driving difficult....

Image of a 1998 flood near San Antonio, US Geological Survey

Texas deploys its 'rainy day fund' to start long-term fight against drought

Nathanial Gronewold in Energy & Environment News: Concerned about its continuing drought, the Lone Star State is embarking upon a multi-decade effort to increase water supplies and make it more resilient to the dry spells that climate scientists say will become more frequent.

Though many conservative lawmakers here still shy from acknowledging climate change, they took decisive action to address it last week when the state's House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to support the Texas Water Development Board's (TWDB) statewide water plan.

That plan, completed last year, recommends new reservoirs, pipeline infrastructure, conservation efforts to preserve groundwater and other initiatives to quench this fast-growing state's need for future supplies of fresh water.

To a round of applause, 146 state legislators approved H.B. 4, which would finance a new fund to begin investing in new infrastructure and other projects by dipping into the state's so-called rainy day fund. The $2 billion that would be taken from the rainy day fund for the water plan is just a down payment toward TWDB's call for some $53 billion in spending over the next 40 years, $27 billion of which is expected to come directly from the state government....

A water tower in Andrews, Texas, shot by Billy Hathorn, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license 

Gulf swallowing Galveston faster than thought

Harvey Rice in the San Francisco Chronicle, via the AP and the Houston Chronicle: Rising sea levels are likely to cover the coastal highway on the unprotected west end of Galveston sooner than previously predicted. A 2007 study underwritten by the city of Galveston that anticipated rising sea levels would cover the highway within 60 years appears to have been overly optimistic.

The $50,000 geological hazard report was prepared for the city by geologists from the University of Texas, Rice University and Texas A&M University but then shelved. The report based its calculation on historic sea level rise and failed to include climate change. Sea levels are rising much faster than previous estimates that accounted for climate change, according to reports released in December by U.S. government scientists and in November by the World Bank.

"It's higher than the estimates they gave us five years ago," said Jim Lester, president of the Houston Advanced Research Center, whose scientists are experienced in coastal issues.

Sea-level rise may pose an even graver problem for Galveston than other coastal areas because the island is sinking at a faster rate than most other areas in the country, a condition known as subsidence. "If you assume subsidence will occur, that means sea-level rise will be even worse than in the rest of the country," said Stephen Gill, senior scientist with the National Oceanic and Aeronautics Administration, or NOAA.

Erosion and loss of protective wetlands are further eating away at the island, said Val Marmillion, managing director of America's Wetland Foundation. The island could shrink by one-third within 30 years, said Marmillion, whose organization based its conclusions on a $4.2 million study by Entergy of sea-level rise threats to the Gulf Coast....

Water in the streets of Galveston, around 1915, shot by Rex Dunbar Frazier

Drought continues in Texas Panhandle; condition improving, experts say

Mollie Bryant in the Amarillo Globe-News (Texas): The Texas Panhandle is still in the grip of severe drought conditions, but this year’s temperatures and precipitation rates suggest that conditions are improving, meteorologists said.

About 60 percent of the continental United States is experiencing drought, according to the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor’s report released Thursday, but the Texas Panhandle is no stranger to hot, dry weather after going through the worst drought in state history during 2011. The drought took a toll on local water resources, and in October 2011, the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority voted to no longer use water from Lake Meredith, which reached a record low of about 28.6 feet last week according to the authority’s website.

Although this year’s weather has been less extreme, temperatures were still above average and precipitation was below average, National Weather Service meteorologist Andrew Moulton said. Amarillo has had about 12 inches of precipitation so far this year, and although that falls short of our average annual precipitation of 20 inches, it’s still a vast improvement from last year, a record low of about 7 inches, Moulton said.

Right now, weather patterns are stuck are in a neutral phase between El Nino and La Nina, he said. Both weather phenomenons result from sea surface temperatures, but they create opposite weather patterns. La Nina creates warm, dry conditions in the Texas Panhandle while an El Nino is characterized by increased rainfall. ...

Dorothea Lange called this 1938 shot "Tractored out"; Power farming displaces tenants from the land in the western dry cotton area. Childress County, Texas,

Smaller Colorado River projected for coming decades, study says

EurekAlert via the Earth Institute at Columbia University: Some 40 million people depend on the Colorado River Basin for water but warmer weather from rising greenhouse gas levels and a growing population may signal water shortages ahead. In a new study in Nature Climate Change, climate modelers at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory predict a 10 percent drop in the Colorado River's flow in the next few decades, enough to disrupt longtime water-sharing agreements between farms and cities across the American Southwest, from Denver to Los Angeles to Tucson, and through California's Imperial Valley.

"It may not sound like a phenomenally large amount except the water and the river is already over-allocated," said Richard Seager, a climate scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and lead author of the new study.

The study expands on findings published in 2007 in the journal Science that the American Southwest is becoming more arid as temperatures rise and rainfall patterns shift from human-caused climate change. It also comes on the heels of a major study of the Colorado River Basin by the U.S. Department of Interior that projected longer and more severe droughts by 2060, and a 9 percent decline in the Colorado's flows.

"The projections are spot on," said Bradley Udall, an expert on hydrology and policy of the American West, at the University of Colorado, Boulder. "Everyone wondered what the next generation of models would say. Now we have a study that suggests we better take seriously the drying projections ahead."

The present study narrows in on three key regions for water managers—the Colorado River headwaters, the greater California-Nevada region and Texas, which gets nearly all of its water from within state borders. The study makes use of the latest models (those used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its Fifth Assessment Report due out next fall), to estimate seasonal changes in precipitation, evaporation, water runoff and soil moisture in the near future, 2021-2040. "It's a much finer grain picture than the one we had in 2007," said Seager....

The Colorado River, near Page, Arizona, shot by Adrille, Wikimedia Commons,  under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Drought, climate change posing threats to Colorado economy

Kirk Siegler in KUNC.org: This year’s stubborn drought and the changing climate will have serious consequences for Colorado’s multi-billion dollar recreation and farming industries, as well as the state’s forests that have seen severe, un-naturally large wildfires recently.  Those are just a two of the takeaways from a two-day statewide drought conference that's wrapping up Thursday in Denver.

Thursday morning, Colorado water managers, policy experts and decision makers got some advice from a nearby state that was in our position last year – Texas.

Mike Bewley of that state’s Division of Emergency Management headed response efforts to one of the worst droughts to hit the Lonestar State since the 1950s that led to water rationing, ranchers being forced to sell off their cattle herds, wildfires. Sound familiar?

"Everyone knows we built the West during a 25 year wet period. This is a problem for the western United States," Bewley said. "Everyone knows we built the West during a 25 year wet period, I heard someone say the other day ‘we haven’t had normal rainfall in Texas in 15 years,’ and I’m like, well maybe that’s not normal anymore."

Texas was first through the door, but not the last, Bewley warned. "If you’re in the western United States, it’s coming your way, it’s just my opinion, my gut feeling, I have no scientific basis to say that, but it’s coming," he said....

Daughter of miner in front of company store. Calumet Fuel Company, Delcarbon #2 Mine, Delcarbon, Huerfano County, Colorado.

Dallas in state of emergency after West Nile virus

BBC: The city of Dallas in the US state of Texas has declared a state of emergency as it struggles to contain an outbreak of mosquito-borne West Nile virus. At least 14 people have died after contracting the virus in the state so far this year.

Almost 700 cases have been reported across the country - the highest number since 2004. Texas residents have been urged to use insect repellent and avoid going out at dusk and dawn.

"The city of Dallas is experiencing a widespread outbreak of mosquito-borne West Nile virus that has caused and appears likely to continue to cause widespread and severe illness and loss of life," Michael Rawlings said.

The move clears the way for aerial spraying to kill infected mosquitoes that transmit the disease. Aerial spraying is also being used elsewhere, including in New York City - where the virus was discovered on Staten Island last month - and Sacramento, California.

There have been cases of infection reported in people, birds or mosquitoes in 42 US states, with 80% of the cases in Texas, Mississippi and Oklahoma. In Texas, the worst-affected state, residents have been urged to get rid of stagnant water, where the insect can breed, and to wear protective clothing....

West Nile Virus electronmicrograph from the National Institutes of Health

Drought caused big drop in Texas portion of Ogallala Aquifer

Kate Galbraith in the Texas Tribune: The historic Texas drought caused the Ogallala Aquifer to experience its largest decline in 25 years across a large swath of the Texas Panhandle, new numbers from a water district show.

The 16-county High Plains Underground Water Conservation District reported this week that its monitoring wells showed an average decline last year of 2.56 feet — the third-largest in the district’s 61-year history, and three times the average rate over the past decade. Farmers pumped more water during the drought to compensate for the lack of rainfall, which was about two-thirds less than normal last year in Lubbock and Amarillo.

Further north in the Panhandle, along the state's border with Oklahoma, a second water district also registered large declines in the Ogallala. Steve Walthour, the general manager of the eight-county North Plains Groundwater Conservation District, calculated on Monday that the average drop in the Ogallala reached 2.9 feet last year.

"We’ve seen some pretty heavy declines," Walthour said, noting that the west side of his district got hit especially hard Given the catastrophic nature of the drought, which was the most intense in recorded state history, some farmers said things could have been worse.

“You never want to pull that much down, but under the circumstances I think we’re probably coming out pretty well,” said Tommy Fondren, who rents out his land in Crosby County for cotton farming....

A saturated thickness map of the Ogallala Aquifer, with the proposed Keystone Pipeline highlighted in red. Map by 570ajk, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Texas grid expects to set June power record again in baking heat

Reuters: The Texas power grid expected demand Tuesday to break the June peak record for a second day in a row and urged consumers to continue cutting back on power use to avoid straining the system as much of the state broils under triple-digit temperatures.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the grid operator for most of Texas, forecast peak demand Tuesday would reach 66,415 megawatts (MW), easily surpassing the June record set Monday of 65,047 MW. Before Monday, the June record was 63,102 MW set last year.

The state's all-time peak use was 68,379 MW set in August last summer during a protracted heat wave and drought. Real-time power prices briefly exceeded $100 per megawatt-hour Monday afternoon. Next-day power prices for Tuesday traded between $165 and $175 per MWh.

The extreme heat hit Sunday when the mercury reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) in Houston, San Antonio and Dallas, the three biggest cities in the Lone Star State, prompting residents to crank up air conditioners. Triple-digit highs were forecast for several more days this week, with several high enough to set records, AccuWeather.com forecast...

A road sign in Notrees, Texas, public domain

Reduced tillage doesn't mean reduced cotton yields under drip irrigation

Terra Daily via SPX: Loss of production may be one concern cotton producers have on the Rolling Plains when considering switching to reduced- or no-tillage systems, said Dr. Paul DeLaune, Texas AgriLife Research environmental soil scientist in Vernon. Not only will cotton growers not lose production with subsurface drip irrigation, their economics will improve, according to DeLaune's latest research article that will appear in the July-August issue of Agronomy Journal.

DeLaune's study on cotton production as affected by irrigation level and transitioning tillage systems was designed to identify water management strategies that conserve and protect water resources within semiarid environments.

"We found that tillage has no impact on yields, the net returns are greater and, because we can deficit irrigate, we can save energy and water," he said.

The three-year study included five irrigation regimes, from 0 percent to 133 percent of evapotranspiration replacement, and evaluated four tillage systems - conventional till, reduced till, no-till and no-till with a terminated cover crop, he said. Treatments were replicated three times in a randomized complete block design.

The results showed lint yields were not affected by tillage or the interaction of tillage and evapotranspiration replacement, DeLaune said. The greatest lint yields and net returns were achieved at 100 percent evapotranspiration replacement. Optimum lint yields and net returns were achieved at 104.5 percent evapotranspiration and 102 percent evapotranspiration, respectively...

A cotton field in West Texas, shot by Calsidyrose, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Free wildfire app now available for Texas residents

Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety: After the costliest wildfire season in Texas last year, the Texas Forest Service and Texas A&M University have launched a free online application that aims to alert residents throughout the state of wildfire dangers.

The so-called TxWRAP application allows residents to enter their home or business’ location in order to find wildfire risks specific to that location. Not only does the application provide wildfire risks based on current weather conditions, the tool also provides information on wildfire risks based on topography.

Professional users can also generate reports and packaged materials using the application in order to provide warnings of wildfire risks to large groups.

The application comes after the Insurance Council of Texas (ICT) estimates that 2011 was the costliest year for wildfires in Texas with insured losses estimated at more than $500 million. In addition, insured loss estimates from the Bastrop Complex Wildfire in the state have reached $325 million due to the destruction of more than 1,600 homes, becoming the costliest in the state’s history, according to ICT...

Two Texas National Guard UH-60 Blackhawks fly over the flames to dump their water filled Bambi Buckets. Texas National Guard crews launched out of the Austin Army Aviation Facility to fight wild fires threatening homes and property near Bastrop, Texas, September 6, 2011. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Malcolm McClendon, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

NASA's TRIMM satellite views Texas tornados in 3-D

NASA: NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite provides a look at thunderstorms in three dimensions and shows scientists the heights of the thunderclouds and the rainfall rates coming from them, both of which indicate severity. Powerful thunderstorms that created severe weather were more than 8 miles high.

...TRMM's Precipitation Radar (PR) data gathered above northeastern Texas on April 3, 8:33 p.m. CDT were used to provide a 3-D view of the intensity and vertical distribution of precipitation. PR data showed that some of the powerful storms within this area were pushing up to heights above about 8 miles (13 km).

NOAA's National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center received 18 reports of tornadoes occurring on April 3 over northeastern Texas. Some of these very destructive storms dropped softball sized hail as they passed to the south of the Dallas/Fort Worth area....

Credit: NASA/SSAI, Hal Pierce

Updated 2011 Texas agricultural drought losses total $7.62 billion (add $669 million for commercial timber losses)

Blair Fannin in AgriLife Today: Texas agricultural losses due to the 2011 drought reached a record $7.62 billion, making it the most costly drought in history, according to updated totals by Texas AgriLife Extension Service economists.

“2011 was the driest year on record and certainly an infamous year of distinction for the state’s farmers and ranchers,” said Dr. David Anderson, AgriLife Extension livestock economist. “The $7.62 billion mark for 2011 is more than $3.5 billion higher than the 2006 drought loss estimates, which previously was the costliest drought on record. The 2011 losses also represent about 43 percent of the average value of agricultural receipts over the last four years.”

“No one alive has seen single-year drought damage to this extent,” said Dr. Travis Miller, AgriLife Extension agronomist and a member of the Governor’s Drought Preparedness Council. “Texas farmers and ranchers are not strangers to drought, but the intensity of the drought, reflected in record high temperatures, record low precipitation, unprecedented winds coupled with duration – all came together to devastate production agriculture.”

Consecutive days of triple-digit temperatures baked Texas pastures as ranchers were forced to purchase supplemental feed for cattle throughout much of 2011. (Texas AgriLife Extension Service photo by Blair Fannin)

“When you are one of the biggest agricultural producing states in the nation, a monumental drought causes enormous losses,” Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples said. “While the pain and damage this drought has caused cannot be overstated, our state’s farmers and ranchers are determined in their commitment and fierce in their resolve. We will rebuild and continue delivering the safest, most reliable and most affordable food supply in the world.”...

This panoramic view of east-central Texas on September 6, 2011, highlights numerous smoke plumes caused by wildfires burning across the state. The image was taken by astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Smoke plumes are clearly visible to the east of Austin; to the north of Houston; to the northwest of Lake Sam Rayburn and Toledo Bend Reservoir; and to the west of Shreveport, Louisiana. Diffuse smoke is moving offshore into the Gulf of Mexico at image bottom.