I've lived in California most of my life and have only once or twice seen a winter that generally tracked with day-to-day historical norms. The years where rainfall tracks with the norms or is below average, temperatures are usually all over the place. In a winter where temperatures are predictably cool and highs and lows match historical records there is usually above average rainfall. Averages are merely means of extremes. Global warming is blamed if the temperatures are too high or too low, if there is excessive rain or drought. A theory that can explain every possible outcome explains nothing (lacks falsifiability). Global warming only predicts changes in means over time. An alteration of the prevailing weather patterns that lasts for longer than a drought cycle (5-7 years) may be important, this year's weather won't be except so far as it reflects a sustained shift in climate. Ryan

Jay, It puzzles me too. Every week when I pull up the map, I expect to see that area of severe drought above your part of the state expanding down closer to you, and yet it doesn't. I am surprised---totally baffled, really---when it doesn't, week after week after week. My best guess is that your area is somehow classifed as a desert or semi-desert region and they don't expect it to rain much where you live so the very low rainfall doesn't register the way it should. That's the only possible explanation I can come up with. To look at the way your area is classified when you know how little rainfall has been recorded there just leaves me scratching my head and saying "What?". I do remember that in the 2005-2006 drought, our area seemed slow to move out of "Moderate Drought" and into "Severe Drought" but then it seemed like we moved pretty quickly into "Extreme" and "Exceptional" Drought. So, if your lack of rainfall persists, we'll see if y'all move from Severe to Extreme to Exceptional more quickly. In 2008, I felt like the U. S. Drought Monitor reflected our conditions more accurately, although I felt like we were "Abnormally Dry" for months before we began showing up on the the Drought Monitor as such. I'm wondering how little rain y'all have to have there to make it into the "Severe" category.....no rain at all for a year? Does it make any sense? Not to me! I have great sympathy for all of y'all up there. It sounds like the conditions keep getting worse and worse, and just how much more can the agricultural producers in your area take? It seems like the droughty areas of Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas pass from one drought stage to another so much more quickly than Kansas does. As those states' dry areas have been moving into the more serious drought categories in recent weeks, I've become really concerned about those very dry areas. They sure need to have a rainy spring....and so do you! Dawn Here is a link that might be useful:

They should do just fine keeping company. Plus, they have plenty of root and air space to spread as needed.

I'm about to put out snow peas and green peas. Snow has delayed me by a couple of weeks. Two weeks from now, I'll be doing beets and maybe some other hardier things.