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[speculawyer]

I live in southern Oklahoma, it has been really bad. We are having a ton of foundation problems, house has so many damn cracks in the walls and ceilings, doors wont close right. I've never been so sick of a season as much as I have been of this summer. Fucking terrible.

Wow. I never thought about that. I've always been more worried about water causing foundation problems than a lack of water causing them.

 

[cajunator]

Lack of water is causing pretty severe problems in places like Las Vegas, where in poorer areas the foundations in people's homes are cracking in half and other depressing shit.

 

[Zoe]

We're hitting the record for # of 100+ days in Austin today...

That record's gonna be smashed.

 

[Baraka in the White House]

I swear this sort of thing happens every year though. Every year there is "exceptional droughT" but it is just hot as fuck every year so people don't think much of it.

I've never seen grass in the middle of Lake Houston. It's been drying out since last fall, the extreme heat is just adding to the misery. Under normal conditions we'd at least be getting thunder showers in the heat of the afternoon. Alas, zilch. Nada.

 

[JoshDigi]

Has nothing to do with it. It's just one example and it's rather silly to conclude there's climate change based off drought in one portion of the world.

You realize there were thousands upon thousands of droughts in every corner for the globe throughout history long before 'global warming'

If you deny climate change you obviously haven't examined the facts. Water temperatures and sea levels are rising. Glaciers are melting.

Right now there are record droughts in Texas. Record cold last winter in the US, Russia, and more. Huge floods in Pakistan. Massive huricanes. There isn't just one or two instances of crazy weather. Something out of the ordinary is happening at all times in some part of the world. This is not normal. How many more records need to be broken until people open up their eyes?

 

[teh_pwn]

It's death outside in Austin.

http://www.weather.com/weather/today/Austin+TX+USTX0057

Actual Temperature = 110
Average = 94
Record = 104

Random shit is bursting into flames creating wild fires.

http://www.kvue.com/news/slideshows...inet-store-128466058.html?gallery=y&c=y&ref=/
http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/strange/mopac-fire-was-spontaneous-combustion

SAVE US JEBUS.

 

[Celsior]

Sorry us Northeast people have to find a place to put all this water. Maybe we will just throw it into the ocean.

 

[teh_pwn]

Sorry us Northeast people have to find a place to put all this water. Maybe we will just throw it into the ocean.

Bottle it and sell it to us under "Irene Springs Natural Organic Water".

We're also having power outages too due to demand. They've even restored natural gas power plants that were abandoned years ago.

 

[Baraka in the White House]

I had a feeling this thread would get a bump today. Forecasters in the Houston area seem to think this motherfucking high will finally take a long jog up toward the northeast next week, which should allow gulf moisture back into the state. Which is both good and bad because it should start kicking off afternoon thunderstorms pretty reuglarly but in the meantime it's gonna turn into a steam bath.

 

[Zoe]

We were at The Oasis last night, and there was a brown-out around 9pm. Would have been pretty scary if it had been a full-blown blackout.

(must have hit all Perdenales customers cause my clocks were out when we got home)

It was depressing looking out over the lake and seeing islands...

 

[DarthWoo]

So at this point, if a hurricane made landfall on Texas as a Cat 5 and delivered enough rain to solve rectify the rain deficits, but at the cost of whatever a Cat 5 hurricane usually does, would Perry consider his prayers answered?

 

[teh_pwn]

I hope this 10 day forecast is true. Back to normalcy:
http://www.weather.com/weather/tenday/USTX0057

It's been so dry a strong Tstorm may do a lot of damage to trees at first.

 

[Zoe]

I hope this 10 day forecast is true. Back to normalcy:
http://www.weather.com/weather/tenday/USTX0057

I'm trying not to get my hopes up. A sudden drop like that on the first day of September is too coincidental.

Hope it's true though cause I wanna go back to bootcamp

 

[Baraka in the White House]

I hope this 10 day forecast is true. Back to normalcy:
http://www.weather.com/weather/tenday/USTX0057

It's been so dry a strong Tstorm may do a lot of damage to trees at first.

Sounds in line with what our locals are saying about gulf moisture making a return. It probably won't produce widespread rainfall but at least the potential is there every day for more substantial showers and storms beyond the 10-20 percent bullshit they've been giving us hope with lately.

 

[teh_pwn]

Sounds in line with what our locals are saying about gulf moisture making a return. It probably won't produce widespread rainfall but at least the potential is there every day for more substantial showers and storms beyond the 10-20 percent bullshit they've been giving us hope with lately.

Better than nothing. Austin is getting dangerously close to having constant wildfires.

 

[Baraka in the White House]

Better than nothing. Austin is getting dangerously close to having constant wildfires.

I just want a cold, dreary, rainy winter. It's a long shot that probably won't happen unless that high goes and stays away. If it yo-yo's back over the top of us again fuuuuuuu...

 

[jamesinclair]

Good thing Texas isnt using the remaining water to extract natural gas from the ground by using millions of gallons of water that is not recoverable because that would just be foolish.

Right?

 

[Milchjon]

Good thing Texas isnt using the remaining water to extract natural gas from the ground by using millions of gallons of water that is not recoverable because that would just be foolish.

Right?

They're not really doing that, are they? Sounds like the worst idea ever. Do you have a link that explains how they do this?

 

[teh_pwn]

Good thing Texas isnt using the remaining water to extract natural gas from the ground by using millions of gallons of water that is not recoverable because that would just be foolish.

Right?

If they are doing that, it should be stopped. There are level 2 water restrictions in place in Austin, and we get most of our water from Lake Travis, an artificial reservoir which is recoverable assuming it rains int he next 4-6 years. Power demand is so high because it's 110 outside that they have enabled ancient natural gas power plants (I didn't even know these existed). If using water is needed to get these online so people don't die of heat, I could understand.

 

[jamesinclair]

They're not really doing that, are they? Sounds like the worst idea ever. Do you have a link that explains how they do this?

Well that would be just crazy.

http://www.independentmail.com/news/2011/jun/30/fracking-gives-texas-another-oil-boom-huge-water-c/

 

[Baraka in the White House]

Houston Chronicle's Eric Berger brings good tidings for the state and the Southeast.

Eric's been brutally honest about the drought so far this year, so to see him so optimistic about this week is encouraging to say the least. He probably got a little too excited when he suggested a cold front could make it its way down here, but if that does indeed happen pants will be shat statewide.

 

[Physalis]

^I'm pushing in anticipation already.

 

[Baraka in the White House]

I think we're all crowning a little. This sounds like an emerging weather pattern of wetness and atmospheric instability, just in time for what passes for fall in these parts. It's kind of pathetic how giddy I am about it.

 

[Meier]

Sorry guys, I'll take the blame.. extreme weather has followed me since I left Florida in '07. Chicago got colder and had more snow for the few years I lived there and now Texas is getting hotter and receiving less water. Sorry!

 

[MechDX]

Sorry guys, I'll take the blame.. extreme weather has followed me since I left Florida in '07. Chicago got colder and had more snow for the few years I lived there and now Texas is getting hotter and receiving less water. Sorry!

You bastard!

 

[Dr. Malik]

I see 40% chance of rain for Fri/Sat/Sun with < 100 degree weather in Austin. Still hot but I'll take it

 

[AbsoluteZero]

http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2011/08/post_5.html

Marsh Fire in New Orleans East.

Breathing outside, already difficult to the heat and humidity, is even more difficult with this shit. Ugh.

 

[teh_pwn]

I see 40% chance of rain for Fri/Sat/Sun with < 100 degree weather in Austin. Still hot but I'll take it

90s is way better than 112. You know that feeling when you open an oven and the dry heat pours out? That's what it feels like outside. In the 90s we won't have brownouts and businesses setting the AC to 85 to save power.

 

[Oppo]

ye gods this is still going on? man. my sympathies.

we had all of July up here with weather like that, and just 30 days unbroken was enough to make me really snappish.

 

[Zoe]

TWC removed the chance of rain from this weekend :\

 

[speculawyer]

 

[Dr. Malik]

Pray that Lee develops and hits us

 

[Zoe]

Finally getting a cold front, but there are fires everywhere. They had to evacuate a neighborhood a few miles south of us

 

[teh_pwn]

Is there a map showing where the fires are? Is it just Bastrop?

 

[Zoe]

Is there a map showing where the fires are? Is it just Bastrop?

http://ticc.tamu.edu/Response/FireActivity/default.aspx

Just heard on the news that a new fire in Leander just popped up in the past 30 minutes. The one near me is the Steiner Ranch though that one seems to be mostly under control :\

 

[Baraka in the White House]

Bastrop sounds like it's getting destroyed by this fire, 500 homes gone so far and officials say it's nowhere near under control. This is my last night in Corpus and you can step outside and smell and even see the smoke from these fires. It's insanity. The situation in the state just keeps getting worse and worse...

 

[teh_pwn]

Ugh, weather forecast is "partly smokey" or something.

This is on the front page of every news website, including BBC. This is the only place on GAF anyone is talking about it? Weird.

 

[jamesinclair]

Ugh, weather forecast is "partly smokey" or something.

This is on the front page of every news website, including BBC. This is the only place on GAF anyone is talking about it? Weird.

Theres some side convo in the hurricane and poligaf threads.

 

[Baraka in the White House]

Sounds like this thread may need a title change come Jan 1.

http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2011/09/analysis-when-will-the-terrible-texas-drought-end/

Chron.com guest weather blogger Fred Schmude breaks it down:

For this year that phenomena started in February and intensified during March and April with very few rain producing weather systems. By the later part of spring and early summer the La Niña phenomena weakened and became a non player, however the very dry soil over the Texas region intensified the drought and allowed a semi-permanent upper-level high pressure to build over the area keeping most of the rain bearing tropical disturbances either south or east of the Texas Gulf Coast. As a result, most of Texas was left high and dry resulting in the current 20-25 inch rain deficit we are currently experiencing in the Houston area and the increased fire danger as wildfires quickly spread across central and east Texas.

Unfortunately the main players that caused the very intense drought last winter are coming back this winter in the form of another potential La Niña condition. We currently are favoring a redeveloping moderate to strong La Niña this winter based largely on another weather phenomena called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, or PDO. The PDO is a large scale weather cycle over the northern Pacific Ocean which demonstrates alternating periods of cold and warm cycles, which can typically last 10 to 20 years. When the PDO is in its cold phase La Niñas typically are more frequent and intense while the reverse is true during the warm phase of the PDO. For this year the PDO has shifted toward the negative phase, which is signaling a redeveloping La Niña later this fall as colder than normal water over the eastern Pacific Ocean is funneled southward into the eastern Tropical Pacific.
As a result, we should see the current drought persist through next spring over most of Texas, including the greater Houston area as La Niña intensifies. Yes, Texas will likely see some welcomed wet periods at times during the fall and early winter as the polar storm track occasionally shifts south bringing quick bursts of precipitation associated with cold fronts and other fast moving disturbances; however, below to well-below-normal precipitation will likely by the dominant weather trend over most of the state though next May.We can always hope for some type of a weak tropical system during the latter half of September into October, but even that scenario is looking less likely with time.

tl;dr version: We're probably kind of fucked.

 

[Baraka in the White House]

Houston smashed the all time record for this day in September (98) by topping out at 102, officially making summer 2011 the longest, hottest and by far the driest single year on the record for Texas.

Worse yet, La Nina appears to be reforming in the central Pacific, the cooling of which usually pushes the jet stream well to the north of us and with it any decent chance of rain.

God damn I can't imagine what another year of this shit will do, how much worse it will get.

 

[Baraka in the White House]

Seeing as how this thread has had two bumps without additional applies I suspect no one gives a shit, but I finally got around to uploading the photos from my trip to Corpus Christi:

This was pretty much the view from 59 all the way to Corpus. Miles and miles of very dead looking farmland with only a handful of rather pathetic looking patches of cotton growing here and there.

This is probably one of the best illustrations of how bad things have gotten here. Taken from the Texas State Botanical Gardens, this is their wetlands exhibit. As you can see, there's nothing wet about them anymore.

The wetlands boardwalk stretches out over dusty hardpan.

Dead marsh reeds near the stagnant pool of what was once the marshland preserve.

Even shit growing in the "Arid Garden" was dying.

A creek bed.

More to come.