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Thursday, July 9th, 2020

In Parched Southwest, Warm Spring Renews Threat of ‘Megadrought’

Author:    
Source:     DNYUZ
Publication Date:     8 July 2020
 Link: In Parched Southwest, Warm Spring Renews Threat of ‘Megadrought’
Stephan:   Just because we are in the middle of a Pandemic that now involves at least one percent of the American population doesn't mean that climate change is taking some time off. As I have been warning my readers since the early 90s, water is destiny, and we are going to have three big internal migrations: 1) Away from coasts because of too much water; 2) out of the Southwest because of temperature increase and insufficient water; and, 3) out of the central states because of violence weather events like tornadoes. Well, here's a little update.
Colorado drought Credit: Colorado Springs Gazette

LOVELAND PASS, COLORADO — Here at 12,000 feet on the Continental Divide, only vestiges of the winter snowpack remain, scattered white patches that have yet to melt and feed the upper Colorado River, 50 miles away.

That’s normal for mid-June in the Rockies. What’s unusual this year is the speed at which the snow went. And with it went hopes for a drought-free year in the Southwest.

“We had a really warm spring,” said Graham Sexstone, a hydrologist with the United States Geological Survey. “Everything this year has melted really fast.”

The Southwest has been mired in drought for most of the past two decades. The heat and dryness, made worse by climate change, have been so persistent that some researchers say the region is now caught up in a megadrought, like those that scientists who study past climate say occurred here occasionally over the past 1,200 years and lasted 40 years or longer.

Even a single season of drought is bad news for the Southwest, where agriculture, industry and […]

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2 Comments

  1. Lauren Raine on Thursday, July 9, 2020 at 8:53 am

    Here in Tucson, Arizona we await the seasonal monsoons, but they haven’t come. I pray they do. The mountains above Tucson have been afire for a month, much loss of forest. And very high temperatures – as I write it is expected to go to 109 today.

    • Rev. Dean on Thursday, July 9, 2020 at 3:07 pm

      Even here in my home state of Pa., we have no rain and I have to waste a lot of money just to try to make my gardens grow. If we do not get rain, I will not be able to have enough food to last through the next year, and I will not have enough money to survive at the high prices I see in the supermarkets.