Drought Shifts East, Little Relief in Sight
The focus of the drought plaguing much of the nation has shifted eastward, but little relief is in sight for most areas, the National Weather Service reported Thursday. The new short-range forecast through next Monday calls for hot, dry weather to expand eastward from the Rockies through the Ohio Valley to the Mid-Atlantic states. Rapidly moving weather systems are expected to drag weak fronts along the U.S.-Canadian border, possibly triggering scattered showers in the extreme northern Plains and upper Mississippi Valley. The heavy rain which has hit portions of Texas is expected to diminish. Long-term drought conditions now cover a large area of the Great Lakes region and the Ohio and Tennessee valleys, the agency's Climate Analysis Center reported. In addition, drought conditions persist over large areas of the northern Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. A 30-day weather forecast issued Wednesday held little hope for improvement. And a separate climate assessment added that many areas now experiencing extreme drought have less than a 4 percent chance of recovering from the drought within 3 months. At the beginning of July, 29 percent of the nation was undergoing severe or extreme drought, the agency said. On Tuesday, the Agriculture Department announced sharp reductions in the anticipated harvest of many crops because of the water shortage _ and those projections were based on the assumption of normal weather from here on, according to department officials. The new National Weather Service forecasts cast a dark cloud over that assumption. The drought region now extends well into West Virginia and includes nearly all of Ohio and Indiana and much of Kentucky and Tennessee, the weather service drought advisory said. On the other hand, western portions of the Mississippi Valley have received some relief due to recent rains. The drought has been accompanied by higher than normal temperatures over much of the nation, most notably over the western Great Lakes region. The national picture shows the current drought to be about equivalent to that of 1911, and still somewhat less severe than in several years in the 1930s or 1956. However, in the Midwest, the weather service reported that large areas have experienced the driest April-June period on record since 1895. Recent rains have resulted in local flooding in Texas, but nationally streamflows are below normal, and even in Texas are expected to fall back to below average levels. Flows in many major rivers remain low and continue to restrict navigation. Reservoir levels remain close to average in much of the nation, however, the weather service noted. In addition to Thursday's short-range forecast, the medium-range outlook through July 23 anticipates much of the nation will remain hotter than normal, particularly the Tennessee Valley, lower Midwest, central and northern Great Plains, northern Rockies and Great Basin. The only areas escaping heat in the forecast are the nation's northwestern and northeastern corners and the Louisiana-Texas-New Mexico area. Most of the hot area is expected to be drier than normal, although some significant rain could penetrate northwestward from Texas into New Mexico, Colorado and eastern Wyoming.
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