Quirkyquercus, you and all the plants have my prayers and sympathy.

#1 necessity for life: fresh oxygenated air
#2 necessity for life: water

Water is so precious, so absolutely vital, such a miracle, I have always thanked God when it rained, baptism of LIFE pouring from the heavens.

Every time I run the faucet or sprinklers I rejoice in the amazing blessing of water on demand. I pray earnestly that here in the used-to-be-wet PacNW the spigots never run dry and water is never rationed or prohibited.

If the severe drought around the country and globe keep up, there will be massive migration.

Sounds beyond terrible!! I'm not all THAT far from Atlanta, and our weather has been a little dryer than usual this year, but nothing serious - amazing how there can be so much difference!
After Hurricane Katrina, we had a two-month long drought that I think was the cause of the death of many of our remaining (and damaged) pine trees - you could hear noises coming from the dying trees all the time, and I think the noises were probably southern pine beetles, which I've read thrive in dry weather.
How're the pines and other forest trees doing in north Georgia?
Sherry

I was up in the Knoxville area back in July and it was dry then, I can only imagine how it must be now. Like Sherry said, we're dry near the gulf coast, but it's not as severe as north AL & GA.

I have a rain gauge, and I write down my daily rainfall, Alabama. I just totaled up how much we've had thus far this year, and it came to 51.65" - if we get 14" more for the year, then we'll be at the average 65" per year. We usually get about 5" in November and about the same amount in December, so we'll probably be nearly as wet as normal - I think there's been less rain as you go east, so you've probably had a little less than I have.
I haven't seen the kind of drought they're having in north Georgia, north Alabama, central and eastern Tennessee and other nearby areas since the mid-70's, I think it was - north Alabama had an equally horrible drought then.
Sherry

We've been in a Exceptional drought the worst level all summer and fall which has took a big toll on crops, trees, and water levels. In many areas this is nearly a 1 in 200 year rarity drought. And many areas are more than 20 inches below normal for the years rain. It would take some slow ground soaking rains from at least a few tropical systems (next year) and or several heavy storm systems (this coming winter and mostly in spring) to help with the drought.

U.S. Drought Monitor
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There are people that are 20" below normal and there are people that are just plain unlucky.

As for the condition of the trees and forests, while I am not inspecting these trees for pests etc, they look remarkably well to me. Don't forget we also had an extended period of high 90's and 100's which was brutal. Unlike in on the coast where a daily afternoon t-storm usually cools stuff down, there was no rain for us.

It's even turning out to be a pretty decent fall color for a lot of trees.

As you go up I-75 into TN and KY I have noticed that the trees looked like they were really struggling compared to here. I don't have an explanation for that.

What has me the most upset right now is the newly planted stuff. You might remember I posted about my neighbor telling me to get her some trees and she'd pay for it. Well the trees have been sitting there since before october. The trees were purchased before there was even talk about a total watering ban. She had an exemption for about 30 days but time ran out. Most of the period it was too hot to plant anyway and the ground was too hard to dig.
So now I can look out the window and just watch the plants expire.

Alabamatreehugger, next time you're coming to Knoxville, bring me a bucket of water.

Knoxville is very bad, but it could be worse. We don't have a watering ban yet (pounding on wood). Some of the areas around here do have a ban. I guess I could pump water from the stream at my arboretum if there was a watering ban. So far I've been watering my younger trees enough to keep them alive with "city/tap water".

I was standing out in a back field the other day, heard a noise that sounded like a gunshot, looked around for the source, and then saw a giant tree come crashing down off a nearby hillside. I've had 4 large trees fall this year plus 2 other large trees taken completely down by one of the first 4. Every one of those trees looked healthy before they fell. I hope it's not a sign of many more such incidents to come.

Our drought here has been pretty bad. Never seen full grown oaks, maples and dogwoods just die in the middle of the summer. Maybe they browned out early and will releaf next spring??

It looks like some of you guys are finally getting rain tonight.

Yes it's raining!

North Lousisana is suffering a drought also. They are about 14" below normal. Lost all 100 black walnuts I planted on land there back in January.
Where I live in "middle Texas" we are on the edge of the "dry line". The number of trees I plant here each year is limited by how many can I water for 2 years to get them established. Typically after a dry year, we have some trees that survived the drought but were stressed so badly that they died the next year.
Hope y'al return to normal soon with minimal losses.

quirkyquercus, drought unfortunately tends to perpetuate itself, especially in the summer when rain is often derived from local moisture (as opposed to large-scale winter storms). If you recall, a stagnant, dry high-pressure system set up almost permanently over the SE drought area this past summer, and continues to persist somewhat even now. The reason for this is that dry air is heavier than moist air, and so tends to sink in opposition to lighter, more humid air. So there is a natural tendency for high pressure (sinking air & little rain) to set up over dry areas, and low pressure (rising air and rain) to occur over the surrounding, moister areas. IOW, the surrounding, moister areas continue to get rain at the expense of the drought area -- rising air needs adjacent, sinking air to sustain it.

I sympathize. Hopefully large-scale winter/spring storms which depend much less on the local conditions may "crack" the drought this winter.

You gotta start somewhere! :)
Sherry

Maybe they can drop a nuclear bomb over the high pressure bubble to pop it?

Oh no wait a second... :-)

That sure was a fast moving cold front. It rained heavy here for about three minutes, then it was gone.

I'm sorry to hear that ATH, since a 3 minute heavy rain probably didn't do much to irrigate what you have but maybe it wound up in your local reservoirs.

We just caught the tail end of the front- a few minutes of light rain. We are very dry here in FL, but it is localized. All summer, the typical thunderstorms went all around us. We basically missed the 'rainy' season! Now, we're into the dry season. I keep tabs on the upstate of SC, since we have property there, and it is desperately dry.

It is awful to watch things die when there is no rain and no water. We had a drout and were restricted to household use only. Guess who saved the bath water? It saved my garden and a few younger trees. My neighbor peeked over the fence and said "you re going to get into trouble watering." When I told her I was using bath water, she got all excited and started bailing tub water as well. Where there is a will there is a way.

It's been raining here every few days, and when I look at the radar, I've been seeing rain in the worst drought stricken areas in and around Atlanta.
Have you gotten much rain up there?
Sherry

Yes there has been some beneficial rain the past week. I didn't want to post separately about that since good news is not nearly exciting as bad news. :-)

Yeah we have had some good rain chances lately. Looks like we could get another good soaking sunday...possibly a couple inches! ::crosses fingers::!!

That's great!
Those pictures of Lake Lanier are shocking!
Sherry

It's been raining enough to make me declare that the great big emergency is over.

Thanks for asking by the way.

I was hoping that at least this would break the record for driest year on record to at least make it official. Especially for all the crap we went through with watering bans, people turning in their neighbors and vigilantes out cutting hoses and causing trouble. But as it turns out we will not be breaking that record. We were so close.

Thank goodness!
I dumped out 1.8" of rain in my gauge this morning, for a total of 58.15" for the year. A big cold front is supposed to be coming through, so I don't think there will be any more rain for the year. Our yearly average is 65" so we're a bit below normal, too, but nothing like what happened to the northeast of here.
I'm sure the Atlanta area trees are even gladder than we are that it's raining again!
Sherry

It rained nonstop for over 24hrs here. I don't think my clay soil can hold any more water, it's good and soupy!

What a great rain event! With 66% of NC in an exceptional drought...this past month has really put a dent in the drought :)

Here is a neat video of photos of Lake Lanier and its dryness.
The video of photos seems to be taken over 2 months ago, it could be in a worse condition by now. I watched this video, it isn't obscene and there is no audio, just incredible photos.
If you watch it, even with hi-speed you should hit "pause" first to let it load then after it loads hit "play" so its not all jerky, that might even work with dial-up if your patient to let it load first.
I've never seen dry like that.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BX7zDEyzPw&feature=related

Glad you're getting some decent rain at last! Just hope it isn't too late for all the trees.

Resin

Atlanta got 30 inches and that's bad?

Pfft. In 2005, we had around 16 inches. In 2006, we had around 26 inches. Now that is BAD.

Looks like the drought area is slowly getting chipped away by a series of low-pressure systems, especially on the west side of it. As areas in it get more moist, it should encourage even more rain as long as the jet-stream stays favorable (big if).

But run-off reservoirs won't fill up much until the ground becomes saturated. That will take some time -- months.

I ended up w/alittle over 40" rain for the year -- just about average.

Yes, indeed, Lou, that's BAD!!
Resin, according to my conversion chart, rounding off my rainfall for this year to 60" which it nearly is, I've gotten 1.525 meters or 1524.0 millimeters of rain this year. At 30" Atlanta would have gotten half that, or about .75 meters/762 millimeters. Of course, that's significantly below the average yearly rainfall for the Atlanta area - my reading is slightly below normal. I've been recording rainfall for the past 5 or 6 years, and I've had as much as 76.10" which would be about 1.93 meters/1930.4 millimeters, assuming that my mathematics are correct.
What's the average rainfall for your part of UK?
Sherry

Sherry,

That's a lot of rain! On average rainfall for my area is around 36 inches give or take a couple inches. We just hit 50 inches mark for 2007 which I think is 4th wettest year on record and pretty much filled up all the lakes just like that. Nearly all lakes were nearly depleted before it started raining a lot this year.

Perhaps it's time for Atlanta to follow our lead and start doing things to conserve water. Dallas-FtWorth area is just as big and we get less rain than Atlanta most years...

Like Lou just did, a lot of people will compare the drought here to their southwestern US or other arid climate avg rainfall totals and suggest that we are whimps but one must understand that is comparing apples to oranges. The average rainfall is what local flora depends on for survival. Not to mention businesses are closing and jobs being lost due to this. We mostly have surface water sources for water in this area. The same sources that 2 other states get some water from. It isn't enough. That is the problem.

I drove around the part of the lake (lanier) yesterday and noticed that nearly every home on the street had a for sale sign. True it did look like everyone had a huge beach behind their house but cmon that's overreacting I think. People the lake will fill up again! You don't have to sell your house!

Furthermore I think the true effects this drought has on trees won't be realized until spring when trees leaf out... or not.

I kind of agree quirkyquercus, but the Dallas-Fort Worth area is actually just as much in the SE humid wet climate area, as well as the arid dry SW climate area, but like me, being on the edge between the 2 areas they do get dry arid weather as well as the humid wet weather. They get a bit more of the dry arid weather than I do though.

But they do have a larger population than the Atlanta(DFW MSA 4.8 million compared to Atlanta MSA of 3.75 million) area and they do have more man made lakes which helps to spread out their water sources for the metropolitan area. I'm sure 49 years out of 50 or so in Atlanta you have plenty of water supply, but the 1 out of 50 or so like this year is when the inadequacy of your water supply shows.

I think you are right about the native vegetation, it's adapted to your wet humid climate, and years like this will undoubtedly kill of a portion of the vegetation. I think you won't see all of the effects of this drought on trees until spring...spring of 2009. We had 3 1/2 years of severe drought up here back in the early part of this new century and many trees didn't start showing their damage until 1 year after the drought ended confusing a lot of people who didn't put it all together and were panicked thinking some new disease was coming through and killing their trees.

A note about comparing apples to oranges though, I once new a person who had just moved to Eastern Kansas from New Mexico and when the drought was being reported in the local media and water restrictions were being put in place etc, this person was totally confused. They said, "How can this be a drought? I can still see water in the rivers and lakes!". It's all kind of relative, huh? :-)

Hi Sherry,

Rainfall here in northeastern England is actually quite low, the annual mean is 70cm (28"), but of course the summers here are also A LOT cooler than you get (July mean 15°C), so evaporation doesn't take very much away and the climate is much "wetter" than the low total figure might suggest. The further west you go, and the higher in the hills you go, the wetter it gets; northwest England gets double what I get on low ground, and four times in the hills. Western Scotland is true temperate rainforest climate.

There's a certain amount of variation from year to year; 2005 was very dry, last year and this year have both been wet. This year was actually a real mixture, very dry February to April, then floods in May to July, then average August, dry September and October, and about average since then. The wettest weather here is if a low pressure area gets stuck in the southern North Sea, then we get persistent northeasterlies with 3-4 days non-stop rain with totals of 10-15cm (4-6").

Still not seen a single snowflake yet this winter, though they're forecasting a little for this Thursday (3 Jan). Whether it'll happen is another thing! We were supposed to get a bit about 3 weeks ago but in the event it was just above zero and rained instead.

Resin

That's sort of what I thought, Resin. In the winter here in southeast MS (when the temperatures are cool), the soil never dries out - in relatively dry winters, the soil is just moist, and in wet winters, the water accumulates until the little stream in the bottom of the hollow becomes a big stream by March. We get most of our rain in the summer, which we need with the extreme heat. The cool weather of England must be nice! If the winter in England this year reflects the changes we've had this winter, you should get some snow soon - notherners here are getting snow and ice!
I notice you used centimeters in your rainfall measurements - I'll check my conversion table for that.
Sherry

Glad you're getting some rain, finally!

Let's hope for an end to this drought soon.

"The cool weather of England must be nice!"

Not when you get 4 days in succession in July when it doesn't get above 9°C and you have to put the heating on!! . . . though it's true I also don't like those occasional rare days when it gets above 23°C.

There are also occasional days when it doesn't go below 12°C at night in January  do you ever get days when January nights are warmer than July afternoons?

Resin

No, Resin, I've never heard of such a weird temperature thing as that! 12C is a fairly common nighttime temperature for January here, though it's usually lower than that, but 9C for July would never happen here, it's never been even close to that - typical lows for July are 25C with 35C for the high.
Right now, we're experiencing an Arctic blast - our temperature last night got down to about -1C, and it's supposed to go down to about -8C tonight, which would be a record cold temperature for this date. I'm pretty sure my orange and lemon trees will die. I planted the orange 3 or 4 years ago, and it's grown to a fairly nice size. I planted it for giant swallowtails to use for egg laying - fortunately, I've got plenty of ptelea trifoliata, ruta graveolens, and one zanthoxylum clava-herculis, all of which are cold hardy members of the citrus family, for them to use next year. I've got lots of chrysalids that will be emerging, mating, and needing a host plant this spring - ptelea trifoliata is actually their favorite.
Sherry

Sherry, WeatherBug now says our low tonight is 14°F (yesterday it said 19°), that's COLD to me! I covered some young gardenias that I planted and moved my potted plants into the garage, the rest will have to survive on it's own. I wonder at what point will evergreen azaleas get damaged?

My evergreen Azaleas don't mind -10°F(-23.3°C). Of course it depends on cultivar and how acclimated to certain weather they are, but I believe the vast majority of evergreen Azaleas should have no problem with your temps alabamatreehugger.

There was the early July day 3 or 4 years ago when I got up at dawn and saw ice on the car windshields in the street . . . ;-)

We've got a Siberian blast heading here for tomorrow, but they've been steadily downgrading the severity of it in the forecasts over the last 2 days, looks like it'll be sleet (UK definition: rain/snow mix) or possibly snow showers but probably not settling. I guess because the North Sea has been above average temperature so is warming the cold Siberian air up more. The North Sea may give us miserable summers, but it saves us a lot of winter grief!

Resin

Thanks Kman

I seen on the news last night our record low here was 8°F back in 1983. I was only 4yrs old then, too young to remember. : )

Alabama, it's already down to 27F degrees now (that's about -2C or -3C degrees, Resin, according to my conversion chart) so 14 degrees doesn't seem out of line. They keep changing the forecast for how low we'll go, but I know one thing, my orange and lemon trees are finished! :( I brought my tenderest plants in pots into the house and put my cold hardy ones in the back of my husband's truck, backed it up into the garage, set a portable heater in the truck with the plants, and shut the doors - I think those will all be alright. The lowest the temperature has ever been since we moved here in 1996/1997 is 18F degrees (-8C degrees) and I think we may go below that.
Sherry

Alabama, I forgot to tell you that if your evergreen azaleas are the Indican types, like Formosa, Pride of Mobile, or Mrs. C.C. Gerbing, they'll do fine, mine always do. Their leaves may droop a little, but they'll pop back up when it warms up.
Sherry

It got down to 19F/?-7C last night - my orange and lemon trees still have their leaves on, but they feel kind of stiff. It's still a little below freezing!
Sherry

I woke up this morning at 4am and it was 18°F, so I'm not sure if it got lower than that. My Gardenias have big garbage cans over them so I'm not sure what they look like yet.

I was kinda hoping it would get cold enough to kill back the millions of Tallow seedlings around here. That's wishful thinking though. ;)

Drought IS relative. Anything substantially less than what is considered "average" for that area will constitute drought conditions, regardless what that total maybe. That Atlanta only received 31.85" of rainfall in 2007 compared to 50+" considered typical certainly qualifies for pretty extreme drought conditions.

The Pacific Northwest has a reputation for being a damp climate, but our average rainfall totals are actually quite low in most areas compared to a lot of the rest of the country. We were up slightly this year over the 'average' of 37" which would still constitute pretty dry conditions in many parts of the country. And unlike many other areas, we get very little rain in summer with the bulk of it coming in the winter months. As a result, summers here often qualify for drought conditions.

So yes, 31.85" may sound like an adequate amount of rain if you are accustomed to Dallas's annual of 33.8" or Seattle's average of 37", but if you are expecting 50+" as is typical, it just won't cut it.