maybe we'll hit 108 today

[threeplusfire]

From the local news today:
Temperatures as high as 108 degrees are set to move into Travis County today, making it the 72nd day of triple-digit heat this year.

It is relentless, a slow motion car crash grinding up the state. 272 counties have burn bans. Right now 100% of the state is in a drought and 77% of the state is in the worst category of extreme drought. A year ago 15% of the state was in drought and none was suffering in the worst category.

Most of the lawns on our block are dead or dormant. There are a couple that a are more shaded or have owners willing to violate the water conservation rules by watering every day and so they remain green. There are dead tree leaves everywhere and bare branches. There are actual cracks in the dirt in my yard. The house on the corner by the mail box has a bit of a slope to their yard and with all the grass dead the dirt is starting to erode.

I have to admit I'm annoyed by the hurricane hysteria, even though I don't watch television news which spares me from some of the worst of it. But that is mostly to do with how it vexes me that a nice flashy disaster show will always get attention, while we continue to grind along in one of the worst droughts ever seen here. (And I get that the thing in front of you is usually the one with your attention and why should people who don't live here care about this miserable year, etc, etc, etc.) What I wouldn't give for a storm though. Everything must be relative somewhere. I must also confess my tolerance for everything dropped to zero after reading about the agricultural industry's catastrophes this year and seeing so many photos of starving cattle.

I read yesterday about how the Barton Springs salamander population is suffering and chances that they might go extinct are rising every day without rain. People who don't live here probably don't understand what a thing that is, those tiny, shy salamanders. They ignited a war between developers and environmentalists in 1990 that raged on and on through my teen years until the salamanders were given endangered species protection. They also provoked serious zoning and planning changes for the city in how it treats its green and blue spaces. It's a thing that probably doesn't matter to anyone who didn't live here.

The weather situation is so depressing. I want to hold people's heads in it until they are forced through cracked and bleeding lips to admit that climate change is real, that praying for rain isn't doing anything to help anyone but the television and things here are bad. It all makes me angry and hopeless.

That said, I'm still okay with earthquake coverage because the ground moving out from underneath you is never, ever cool.

Comments

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

OMG horrible! We would glad give you rain if we could. <3

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

It's so shocking to look at that map. When summer started there were still bands of the state not in drought.

Please, box up your hurricanes in some bubble wrap and mail them here. :D Will pay for rain in baked goods, candy and fanfic.

[weirdquark]

We live on a lake which has not dried up completely yet, and hopefully the drought will end before that happens. My roommate and I keep going swimming to see if we can walk across it yet, and so far there are bits that are above our heads. But it's getting to the point where they are only just above our heads. Still better than other people are doing though.

Where there used to be six inches of mud under the surface of the water is now baked dry with deep cracks, with footprints where we sunk in back when it was still mud because it dried faster than the mud could settle.

We have water barrels to catch rain water off our roof, and it rained just enough a couple of days ago to fill it back up again, so we can still water our plants, but the grass is dead, except for next to the trees that we still water because we'd like them to live and give us fruit some day. We thought the lake was pretty low and the heat pretty bad when we moved here a couple of years ago, but now that was nothing.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

We really, really need to set up a rainwater collection system here. The local utility is offering some crazy rebate that might even make it affordable.

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

I routinely check the Drought Monitor every now and then, since we had a very bad drought ("very bad" defined as about five percent as bad as this) a few years ago, and I actually shuddered the last time I looked at the Texas portion of the map. I hate to say it but I think large portions of the Southwest are going to run out of water in my lifetime, and I don't see the slightest political will either in the region or outside it to take any steps to address that.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I read some LCRA official statement recently that said central Texas has water to last until 2060. And then I thought, shit.

I think I can fix our budget problem and our water conservation problem at the same time. Enormous fines! I wonder how long it will be until that comes up on the table.

[litos.livejournal.com]

I was reading earlier and I thought that this kind of drought is actually not all that rare in Tejas... and is not due to climate change. The region goes through dry and wet cycles and we've been in a wet cycle over the past few decades. (I say we as I went to UT...)

Don't get me wrong. It is catastrophic. And, I firmly believe we need to do something about climate change whether or not it is behind the drought.

I guess... what I am doing is wishing you luck... and wondering, if this kind of drought is not to be unexpected in Texas, how should that alter the way the state develops.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Texas does have a cyclical weather history, which is documented well. (I saw an interesting bit on a project to take tree samples from cypresses south of here to determine what years had droughts, going back centuries!) However this year has smashed records left and right. This is actually the worst single year drought on record. This year is showing higher temperatures than any in the weather records going back more than a century. The question of whether the drought itself was caused by climate change or whether climate change is just making an ordinary drought worse seems kind of beside the point.

[awdrey-gore.livejournal.com]

I need to take some pictures of what is happening in my house due to the drought's effects on our foundation. It is insane.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

It's nice to know we will be supporting the economy by employing lots of home repair companies, isn't it? Sigh.