LUBBOCK - Central Texas cattle raiser Gerry Shudde remembers Texas’ drought of record in the 1950s when his family’s ranch sometimes got a couple of 4-inch rainfalls a year. But the drought ongoing now is far different. ‘This is just cut off completely,’ the 74-year-old rancher said. ‘In a lot of ways, it’s worse.’ Across the nation’s No. 2 agricultural state, drought conditions are evaporating stock tanks, keeping many crop farmers from planting into long-parched soil, forcing cattle producers to cull their herds, and dropping water levels in state lakes. Despite hurricanes Dolly, Gustav and Ike soaking Texas in 2008, almost every part of the state - nearly 97 percent - is experiencing some drought, according to the most recent U.S. Drought Monitor map, released Feb. 26. Parts of Central Texas and the Hill Country - more that 8 percent of the state - are not only in exceptional drought - the most severe stage of dryness - but they are now the driest region in the country and the driest they have been since 1918. It is the only place in the U.S. experiencing exceptional drought. San Antonio, two counties east of Shudde’s […]