You can read my diary uploaded yesterday for more extensive commentary. This is a picture of dead trees on the side of the road from last years drought. There are areas where you can see this all the way up and down the roads. The area right near a paved road is much hotter because the pavement holds and radiates heat. Also the trees near the ditches tend to be smaller than the trees behind fence lines.
Usually though, under normal hot and dry Oklahoma Summers, these little trees would get dry, but still be mostly green. They would still be alive. But the ground is so hot, and there is so little moisture, even in a ditch, that they just died. As you can see it looks like they are fried--literally.
All the growth behind them is dry as well, just not dead. So areas like this present a huge fire hazard. We still have yocals who throw lit cigarettes out windows, and areas like that will go up in flames so quickly and leap to all that semi-green dry trees behind it, and of course the acres of dead sod too.
Look at this picture and tell me this is normal. I have lived in this state most of my adult life, and I have never recalled seeing anything like this. Sure you might loose a few trees to an area that has really good drainage and no water, but to have them die all up and down the streets like this is unheard of.
To see indigenous species that are drought hardy like sand plum, and redbud dying is unheard of. Until last year, I have never ever witnessed Sumac shrivelled up and dead with the berry heads fallen off.
There are numerous areas like this. I just want to be clear about that.
The good news is that the blooms on most of the sumac set and made berries. So there will be some food sources for wild turkey and deer. Humans have begun to scavenge sand plums, as more locavores do this, I wonder if they keep in mind that animals depend on those plums for food?
Here is a photo of last year's drought. I believe this was in or near Noble County
The sod was dead. When it did finally rain, it smelled like wet hay, the odor was overpowering. I have already witnessed fields that are beginning to look like it's the dead of winter and not just a hot summer. You drive by and there is no green in the field at all. It's all either dead or dormant. Even in the heat of summer, you will have green at the base of the tussocks of grass.
This is a picture from 2011 in Texas.
As you can see, like the first image from Oklahoma 2012, there are dead and dying trees all up and down the roads, which of course some will try and tell you this is perfectly normal. I spent a lot of my summers in Texas, and it does get damn hot there in the Summer, but I can assure you that *THIS is not normal at all.
As a child of these parts, I spent most of my time in the summer outside, in the wooded areas, fishing. It wasn't built up with suburban neighborhoods like it is now. I knew where to find the good creeks, and the cooler areas near the ravines and wash-outs. Places that have long since been filled in and built over.
There is dry, and then there is this.
I am watering my vitex bushes again this morning. The soaker hose isn't cutting it.
Wed Aug 01, 2012 at 4:10 PM PT: "The U.S. Department of Agriculture's addition of the 218 counties means that more than half of all U.S. counties - 1,584 in 32 states - have been designated primary disaster areas this growing season, the vast majority of them mired in a drought that's considered the worst in decades."
http://www.cbsnews.com/...
What this means is that half of all counties in the lower 48 are in a drought.
Thu Aug 02, 2012 at 4:31 AM PT: This is an interesting description of the widespread drought over our country:
"The extreme flash drought -- meaning it came on unexpectedly and isn't letting up -- is decimating Arkansas' cattle industry. Without grass to graze on, owners are having to dip into their winter hay if they have it, or pay $70 per bail of hay that in good times would cost $40."
http://www.cbsnews.com/...
Extreme Flash Drought--Because it was unexpected.
Meaning that no one expected it to settle over the rest of the US. We expected it to some degree in these parts.
Where's Jim Inhofe's Igloo now?