Posts tagged ‘2012 drought’

And the Record for…

by , posted on Wednesday, August 15th, 2012 at 10:32 pm

warmest summer on record for Chicago is probably going to revert back to 1921 in the next week, per Tom Skilling. We really have had a stunning turnaround in temperatures since August began. August is not a month I normally associate with cool temps, but with a high today in the mid-80s, and the 10 day forecast predicting highs in the 70s or low to mid-80s, it’s much, much cooler than the July from hell we just experienced. And we have been getting rain, just not enough of it to make up for baking our way through June and July with no rain in sight. Too late for farmers relying on corn crops, even if it had rained enough to make up our deficit, which it has not. Lawns are still pretty brown around here and I can’t remember the last time I saw someone – anyone – mowing grass.

But to realize we are at the mid-point of an August that has been downright mild, with a ten day forecast that’s also mild, made me start to wonder if the drought pattern is breaking, however late that might be happening for farmers. So I went looking for long-term forecasts and found this one from Accu Weather: above normal temps and below normal snowfall for this area for the upcoming winter. Not the best of conditions for the cornbelt to head into Spring with, following this summer. And it’s kind of reminding me forcibly of the winter of 2011-2012, or as we’ve taken to calling it around here “what winter?”

There’s a lot of discussion in the Accu Weather blog about El Ninos and what-not – stuff we’ve all learned to pay attention to, as it can affect the severity of winter in the Midwest. But I’m having a hard time thinking of a thing like an El Nino as a “long-term” factor in weather. Just now I am thinking that the real long term factor we need to be paying attention to is global warming, since experts are starting to note it has arrived, and that means we have to start questioning what “normal” is when we are talking about the weather.

Personally I suspect the new normal means we’ll be flirting with, and breaking, a lot of weather records we’d just as soon not break, on a consistent basis and for quite a while to come – probably for the rest of my life, possibly for the rest of my grandchildren’s lives.

Share

Hot Hot Hot

by , posted on Wednesday, August 8th, 2012 at 4:47 pm

It’s official. The NOAA says this July is the hottest month on record, and not just the hottest July, though it is that too, but the hottest month. Oh, and also, the last twelve months are not the hottest consecutive twelve months the country has ever experienced.

Here in Kane County it’s still plenty hot and very dry, although temps seem to have moderated a bit, and there have been a few storms dropping some significant rain. It’s cloudy right now in fact. We are still listed as in severe drought however, with much of the country even worse off. As always, I will have my eye on the drought map update tomorrow.

My daughter and I have spent the last week or so planting things in the garden we would never even consider planting at this date – more squash, more beans, more carrots – as they would normally not have a prayer of maturing before the first frost. We did it on purpose, as sort of an experiment, as projections are for exceptionally warm temperatures to persist through October.

We want to start experimenting with what we can grow when in our new climate, as some things we normally grow are performing very poorly this year – the lettuce bolted freakishly early for instance, and the spinach and pea yields were on the pathetic side – while plants that love warmer weather, like tomatoes and peas, have been outperforming.

So we want to play with planting odd things at odd times, and are looking at plant zone maps just to the south of us for clues as to how we might best adjust planting times and varieties that might work here well in future.

If you’re pretty sure about the new reality, might as well plan for the new reality. Denial rarely plays out as an effective solution.

Share

And the designated disaster counties in Illinois are…

by , posted on Wednesday, August 1st, 2012 at 7:28 pm

sadly too numerous to name. Today the number of Illinois counties designated as drought disaster areas rose to 98 of Illinois’ 102 counties. The four counties not named disaster areas (yet) were:
Cook, DuPage, Will, and my home county of Kane.

You can go look at the usda map for the whole country here. It is massive, with more than 50% of U.S. counties declared disaster areas by today.

As to why this cluster of four counties in Illinois are not included, I can only guess that, because we have been getting some rain over the last week, we are in somewhat less dire straits than the rest of the state. But we are still in drought, per the drought monitor map, which may tell a different story after it updates tomorrow morning. The still-brown grass here tells its own story.

Share

Hotter today, a little rain, and…WHAT?

by , posted on Wednesday, July 25th, 2012 at 9:37 pm

I’ve been following the drought, and the multiple heat waves, and since it’s Wednesday, that means I am of course awaiting tomorrow morning’s weekly update to the drought monitor. We’ve had a little rain here, so perhaps the situation has improved? I hope so, but do understand there are vast swaths of the country that have not had as much rain as us and even here the grass is still brown.

Anyway, I saw a link to a NY Times story about the drought and heat, specifically their impact on infrastructure, and thought I’d check that out. The piece starts out with a bit about a jet sinking into the tarmac at an airport, and I admit I wasn’t paying much attention to which city that happened in, skimming, skimming, and then I saw something a little closer to home, that made me say out loud, ok out loud very loudly, “WHAT?”
(more…)

Share

Rain!

by , posted on Thursday, July 19th, 2012 at 8:35 am

It rained last night. According to the rain gauge in my backyard it rained about 1 1/4″ and Tom Skilling said on Facebook that

Heaviest rain in nearly a year has fallen at Midway tonight! 2.02″ fell this evening amid 50 mph wind gusts. 1.50″ of that total came down in just 30 minutes! The last time that much rain fell at Midway was on July 23 last summer when 2.30″ fell.

Huge relief. We were all dancing around the house at midnight calling out to each other when we started to hear the drops fall on the roof (we’d been hearing thunder and seeing lightning for more than an hour prior to the actual rain). You can already see the grass starting to green up, and I’m sure my vegetables are loving this.

(more…)

Share

CORN

by , posted on Thursday, July 12th, 2012 at 6:00 am

The title’s all in caps for a reason – you’ll just have to bear with me to find that reason out. It’s complicated.

My daughter tells this story of moving to North Carolina, inviting friends over for dinner, accepting an offer to help “peel” the corn, watching leaves being literally peeled back one by one, before picking up an ear and rapidly shucking it only to be met with gasps of astonishment and amazed “how did you DO that?” questions.

My son tells this story of being involved in a day-long firefight in Afghanistan in a cornfield and the dissonance caused in his mind by having terrorists fire at him from the cover of high corn that evoked for him happy childhood memories of travelling through miles and miles of cornfields to visit his grandparents on the other side of Illinois.

At the base of both of these stories is a sort of heritage you end up with if you grow up in the cornbelt, even if nobody in your family farms; it’s ever-present enough that you acquire corn stories. And these two definitely grew up in the cornbelt – the only place that can possibly be cornier than their home state of Illinois is Iowa, where I’m headed next if you continue reading.

(more…)

Share