Drought causes stress on crops, rangeland

Lack of rainfall and above-average temperatures are prolonging the drought conditions that have stressed crops and rangelands and placed new pressures on groundwater sources across the U.S. Southern Plains, climatologists from the region said Monday.

While some areas of the Texas Panhandle and southwestern Oklahoma have received plentiful precipitation in recent days, other parts of those states plus New Mexico, Colorado and Kansas have experienced only spotty precipitation since October, New Mexico State Climatologist Dave Dubois said during a national briefing.

“Over the majority of the area it’s been pretty light,” DuBois said.

Drought conditions are so severe across much of the Southwest that they rival those during the disastrous Dust Bowl period of the 1930s, when severe dust storms killed livestock and caused crops to fail.

Oklahoma State Climatologist Gary McManus said some climatological stations in the western part of his state have recorded less than 2 inches of rain since October.

“Some of those stations are pegging the driest 7-to-8 months on record for those locations,” McManus said.

DuBois said the region’s low rainfall totals have been aggravated by temperatures that he said have been as much as 10 degrees above normal during the past couple of weeks. Higher temperatures cause what little rain that does fall to evaporate rather than soak into the ground and recharge water tables.

“Drought is not just precipitation, it’s a bunch of things,” DuBois said.

Less-than-normal rainfall affects the viability of vegetation in the region, including fields cultivated by the region’s farmers and open prairies that provide habitat for wildlife, DuBois said.