William Pack in the San Antonio Express-News: Area farmers and ranchers don't need a color-coded map or a gloomy weather report to know they're at ground zero of what is becoming one of Texas' worst droughts ever.They see it daily in parched fields too dry for seeds to sprout; in stock tanks that carried water during the legendary drought of the 1950s but now are cracked and dry; in prickly pear cactus so thin that they don't provide much moisture when their needles are burned off for skinny cows to enjoy.
…“This is about as bad as it gets,” said Bryan Davis, a Texas AgriLife Extension Service agent in Bexar County who farms and ranches near the Guadalupe County line. “We can't catch a break.” Joe Taylor, an extension service agent in Atascosa County south of San Antonio, said he's beginning to question claims that the current dry spell simply matches the severity of the historic drought from the 1950s. “In fact, this drought may be the drought of record before long,” said Taylor.
San Antonio residents don't have much reason to argue. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said San Antonio experienced its driest 22-month period on record through June, with less than 24 inches of rain since September 2007. That's 39 percent of normal and beat the prior record — set from December 1908 to September 1910 — by more than 2 inches, a department bulletin said. Now experts from Texas A&M University and its extension arms suspect the drought, which has choked wide swaths of Texas for almost two years, could become the state's costliest in modern times….
Tenantless farm in Texas, 1938. It's in Childress County rather than near San Antonio
2 comments:
It would not be good for anyone for this to happen again. I notice the temperatures are rising and this is also a preview of what is to come. I work at a
drug rehaband have been clean and sober for 9 months. The difference of how clear I am is amazing!
San Antonio is my hometown. I lived in the mid-west for the past 12 years. I moved back in April 2008 and noticed a major change, not only from being in the north but how I remembered the weather to be. Yeah, I knew it was hot but my first summer here had proved a drought was in place where reportedly we were on our 48th consecutive day with the temperature(s) being at 100 degrees or more. It went no higher than 106 but let me tell you it was freaking hot! I have been tracking this drought since I moved back and I am soooo looking forward to a cooler summer but I don't think that is in the 'works' anytime soon.
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