Not a drought (yet).....(7-13-12)
Yesterday the official drought numbers came out and while we continued get drier we are still not officially in a drought, at least through the eyes of the National Weather Service. Here is the latest map for the Northeast:
We are in the yellow, abnormally dry area and here is how the folks making this map describe ‘abnormally dry” D0 ... Abnormally Dry ... used for areas showing dryness but not yet in drought, or for areas recovering from drought.I think this is just to alert us that we are getting closer to drought. Notice that parts of extreme western New York are now in the first stage of drought.With the dry weather recently I decided to look at just how much time there has been rain in Syracuse over the last month (since June 12th). At Hancock Field it has rained on 13 hours and 48 minutes in the last 30 days. Normally I don’t like to just throw out those numbers because you don’t have any perspective. I’m not sure what the ‘normal’ amount of time for rain would have been but given our dry spell I’m assuming we are below normal. The reason I put the 13 hour plus number out there is that because to really turn things around water wise we need a day where we get a good soaking rain that lasts for 13 hours. Unlike a brief, heavy thunderstorm, an all day rain has a better chance to soak into the ground instead of run off. A day like that would likely ruin some outdoor plans but in the long run it would do us a great deal of help.
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