With ranchers and cattle raisers talking about the weather even more than usual, Rick Machen, a Texas AgriLife Extension livestock specialist based in Uvalde, went looking for some reliable rainfall data to use as a comparison to the drought of the 1950s. He found a NOAA website with a database of rainfall amounts in San Antonio, by month and year, from 1871 through July of this year. Machen found that 1917 was the driest year during that time period with only 10.1 inches of rain. Current conditions (through July of 2011) are about an inch behind the same period in 1917. "Comparing the drought of the 50s with this drought is like comparing apples and oranges," Machen said. "In the 50s, you had four consecutive drought years, but when you break down the monthly totals, the rainfall they did get was spread out pretty evenly. It rained a little bit each month. "From last August to now is unprecedented. A year ago, 50 percent of the state was in a drought. Now 82 percent of the state is in the worst possible drought, and the long-range forecasts are generally not good. This could easily end up being the driest year since at least 1871." During 1917, that driest year ever in South Central Texas, San Antonio received just 3.9 inches of rain from August through February of 1918. That is the second driest seven consecutive month period on record. The driest seven-month period was from October 1995 through April 1996 with 3.57 inches. Machen also noted that even during 1954, the driest year of the dry 50s, the critical grass-growing months of April-July were wetter than this year...more
Time to go back and read again Elmer Kelton's The Time It Never Rained.
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