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Welcome to my tiny corner of Southwest Oklahoma we are entering our 5th year of a long running drought cycle. It has been drier, longer than the drought that caused the 1930′s dust bowl or the severe 1950′s drought. Lakes, livestock ponds, creeks and wells have gone dry.
Pasture grass lands struggle just to survive. Pastures that burned in wild fires as much as 5 years ago still have not fully recovered from fire damage. Locally grown hay is in short supply or nonexistent. Hay being hauled in from other states is now selling at 3 or 4 times the price of locally grown and bailed hay.
Farmers and Ranchers are selling off all except a few choice cows in hopes of using these cow to rebuild their herds when this drought ends. Even when this drought ends it will take 3 or 4 years for ranchers to rebuild their herds.
Source Seven States Running Out Of Water The United States is in the midst of one of the biggest droughts in recent memory. At last count, over half of the lower 48 states had abnormally dry conditions and are suffering from at least moderate drought. {This content was originally published on 24/7 Wall St.}
More than 80% of seven states were as of last week in “severe drought,” characterized by crop or pasture loss, water shortage and water restrictions. Depending on whether the hardest-hit regions see significant precipitation, crops yields could fall and drought conditions could persist for months to come. Based on the latest data provided by the U.S. Drought Monitor.
By the Summer of 2012, 59% of U.S. range land and pastureland was rated by the USDA as being in poor or very poor condition. The growing drought decimated national hay production, causing feed shortages, which in turn drove up prices in livestock.By the fall of 2012, drought conditions continued to expand westward to its current epicenter states like Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Wyoming and South Dakota. Most worrying is the drought’s effects on the winter wheat crop, which is one of the biggest crops grown in the U.S. and which is grown almost entirely in the states in severe drought. While the region has had some precipitation recently, “winter wheat crop will need ideal conditions heading through the next few weeks just to break even. We’re still trending towards a very poor hard red winter wheat crop at this point,”.
Oklahoma
> Pct. of state in severe drought: 83.2%
> Pct. of state in extreme drought: 56.7%
> Pct. of state in exceptional drought: 9.7%
Over half the area of Oklahoma currently suffers from extreme drought the second worst level listed on the U.S. Drought Monitor. Oklahoma shares this distinction with just four other states. Drought conditions have actually improved since the start of the year. The percentage of the state facing exceptional drought the worst category of drought has fallen from 37% at the start of the year to less than 10% currently. In January, the USDA declared a large part of the winter wheat belt, spanning from Texas to North Dakota, as a disaster area due to the lack of moisture. Recent precipitation has not been enough to help the winter wheat crop in the state that had to be planted in dry soil last fall.
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