I was reading an article on investments this morning which talked about La Nina leading to drought throughout mid-North America in much the same way that El Nino leads to flooding in California. Has anyone got the background in weather to confirm/deny this?

Also, if drought does come to pass next year, what will that mean in terms of your preparedness? Drought tends (like the flooding) to be regional - do you know if your region is susceptible? This may come too late to be useful, or maybe not. It's made me re-think donating preps next summer if Y2K's less than 9, I think I'll hold off 'til fall.

-- Tricia the Canuck (tricia_canuck@hotmail.com), November 23, 1999

Answers

shoot, we had a drought THIS year. Lakes and rivers are all way down.

-- mushroom (mushroom_bs_too_long@yahoo.com), November 23, 1999.

Donate preps like you donate money - a little at a time, when you can afford it, and when you see the need. The maximum need for your preps could come in the fall of 2000 or could come in 2001 - nobody knows. But foodbanks and charities will be in the same pickle as the rest of us, if things get tight, and they'll need whatever you can spare.

This is a balancing act, Tricia, and we've just finished suiting up for the show.

-- bw (home@puget.sound), November 23, 1999.

US gave out a record amount of farm aid this year to the farmers because of the weather--and very much because of the drought. according to a knowledgeable USDA person, the water table for the country was 18 inches below normal this summer and she is afraid of how that has affected this years crops on top of the potential risks brought on by y2k. we may see food shortages if y2k disrupts planting this spring. i don't know if the water situation has improved because of the hurricanes. i think VA is still in drought conditions.

-- tt (cuddluppy@nowwhere.com), November 23, 1999.

Well...I for one would be more than happy to send a little Seattle sunshine your way if only I knew how! I felt we were going to flood last year and we're on a nine hundred foot hill - and the weather people say it will be worse this year. Maybe we could send some of that 90 plus feet of snow we had on Mt. Baker your way (we had such a cool summer this year - read cold - that all that snow did not melt in the higher Cascades and now it is piling up again.) Oh well, just another adventure!

-- Valkyrie (anon@please.xnet), November 23, 1999.

We already had our decade of drought in California. The forests are still dying from bug kill and parasites like mistletoe from their resultant weakened state. Although the '97 floods were very destructive, it was nice to finaly have snowpack last year. Our rivers and springs get their summer water from melting snow high in the mountains. The salmon appreciated finaly having summer water flows.

We did have unseasonable frosts that did damage to fruit and vegetable crops and had a delayed planting season because of wetness. Still, I would rather have too much than too little. Looks like it is just your turn for the drought cycle.

-- marsh (armstrng@sisqtel.net), November 23, 1999.

North central Pennaylvania is at record drought conditions. The water table is the lowest it has ever been since recordings started. I have be prepping for y2k but when I saw another La Nina already existed we went into a 2 day funk. Even without y2k disruptions, I am not sure how we will handle another year of drought. We haven't needed to mow the lawn since June. No grass for the sheep, no water in the streams, no grass growing for hay. Pam

-- pamela (jpjgood@penn.com), November 23, 1999.

--updated weekly: http://enso.unl.edu/monitor/monitor.html

-- DWebb (dwebb@frostburg.edu), November 23, 1999.

I have never seen a November so beautiful or so dry as we have had this year. Our water table is low too with just enough rain to keep things growing on the surface. I mowed some grass yesterday, strange for the week of Thanksgiving. Northern GA.

-- doktorbob (downsouth@dixie.com), November 23, 1999.

First its the computers, then comes the hurricanes, then the earthquake later this week, now the weather. JEEEEZZZ we sure pissed off someone.

In central Ohio all of the resevoirs are down (in some cases feet not inches). In the late summer I read a piece where a local water management guy was stating that the levels would take up to 2 years of "good" rains to bring back up.

If there is a drought (does this remind anyone else of the dustbowl????) it looks like it has started. Yippee, the more things change the more things stay the same. I expect brownshirts to pop up in Europe any time now.

-- squid (Itsdark@down.here), November 23, 1999.

We received 3/4" of rain here in Southern Indiana about 2 days ago. That's the first rainfall we have received in over 6 months. If this type of drought continues thru next year, our well may go dry. We decided to buy a British Berkefeld water filter, in case we end up having to use pond water next year. We were unable to produce many vegetables in the garden due to the drought. The corn was really sad!

-- blackcat (cjohnson@seidata.com), November 23, 1999.

Here in northern Alabama we've had drought since middle/end of July (except for 2 fairly good rains.) Has affected my plans to rely solely on roof rainwater runoff -- have added the solar subpump for ba ckup. Meteorology has been one of my hobbies since the 1930's (when I used to out-forecast the Weather Bureau -- just by reading the weather map in the back of the NY Times. Beating the Weather Bureau, BTW, is no big deal -- my estimate is that they've got around a 50% batting average, depending on the time frame they're forecasting.) Reading the analyses about la Niqa on the Weather Channel suggests it could be a long hot dust bowl a comin' up.

SQUID:

Where do think that 'someone' hangs out? I keep looking up but all I see are the moon and the stars. Whaddya, paranoid or sumpin'?!

Bill

-- William J. Schenker, MD (wjs@linkfast.net), November 23, 1999.

Minnesota weather guys are saying that the temperatures (record warmth, like 80 in November) are breaking records that were set in the dustbowl days of the thirties. We have had about 3/4 inch of moisture since Labor Day. Today we got a little sprinkle of snow, but it's supposed to be in the 40's again tomorrow. This is the third warm winter in a row for this area. Something's up.

-- Liz Pavek (lizpavek@hotmail.com), November 23, 1999.

Thanks for the responses, all.

As I understand it, last year we had a mild La Nina; this year is supposed to be more severe. The article was predicting large scale drought and recommending to invest in materials (utilities, mining co's and gold, eg). Although I don't plan to invest in any market type stuff, I think that those are likely to make faster come backs than regular market entities.

I'd really rather not see a re-run of the '30s. I hope it doesn't come to that. There are far, far more people to feed. That "billions of dead" might be too close to the truth.

-- Tricia the Canuck (tricia_canuck@hotmail.com), November 24, 1999.

While it is too soon to know if we will have a drier than normal year here in S. California, there has been more than one meterologist giving us the La Nina/El Nino comparisons. At least one long-range prediction says, cooler and drier than normal for us, which correspondingly means wetter in the east - typical for La Nina part of the cycle.

We are having a beautiful and crisp late November. 50 degrees F here this morning, 7:30am PST.

BTW El Nino/La Nina cycle is a normal weather pattern on our big blue marble, but the weather terrorists (as we call them) MUST keep us in a constant state of panic. I've fallen back on a tried and true method of weather detection in the last couple years. I look out the window, and stick my head out the door. ;-)

She in the sheet, upon the hilltop,...

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), November 24, 1999.

Hey Donna,

I hope you've got a space blanket to wrap around that thing, in case it turns chilly.

-- flora (***@__._), November 24, 1999.

Bill:

Personally since I am under water I have to look up to seet the silly humans scurrying about while ignoring there own demise, Hee, hee.

But seriously I was talking figuratively of Alan Greenspan because he controls everything and is Omnipotent, Right????

-- squid (Itdark@down.here), November 24, 1999.