The Good Side of Fay

Tropical Storm Fay's remants have slowly been moving through the Southeast all week, bringing much needed rain to a number of parched locales.

As we had predicted, Fay's made a big dent in the long-running Southeast drought, although it would take a couple more storms like it to really put an end to problem.

Above is the latest from the U.S. Drought Monitor. Be mindful that this only includes rainfall through 7:00 a.m. on Tuesday, so next week's report will show an even further shrinking of the drought, especially in SC, NC and southwestern Va.

Nonetheless, we see that for the first time in more than a year, Florida is drought-free. At the start of this year, more than 90% of Florida was in some stage of drought. Likewise, the rest of the Southeast showed a dramatic week-to-week decrease in all categories of drought.

Hurricanes and tropical storms can cause a lot of damage and disruption, but when you hear scientists discuss various schemes to steer such storms away from the U.S. mainland, just remember there is another side to these monsters of nature--they are a major source of fresh water in many parts of the country.

Fay The Drought-buster

Back when Tropical Storm Fay was still in the Caribbean, we speculated that it could bring much-needed drought relief to parched areas of the Southeast, based on a forecast track that would have taken it straight across Florida and up through Georgia.

Fay ended up taking a much more convoluted path, but it has turned out to be a real drought-buster. We'll have the hard data when the U.S. Drought Monitor releases its latest map on Thursday morning, but with rainfall totals in much of Florida, Georgia and the mountain areas of North and South Carolina in the multiple inches (the map above is for the past 24 hours), Fay is bringing some relief.

Of course, it comes at a steep price with all the flooding in Florida. And, it's not the kind of rain that helps farmers. The Drought Monitor distinguishes between an agricultural drought and a hydrological drought. A lot of rain in a short time will raise river and stream levels, fill reservoirs, ponds and lakes, and replenish the water table, thus taking care of the hydrological side of things.

But for farmers, too much rain is as bad as too little, and one after the other just makes the disaster complete. A decidedly mixed bag, but for municipal water systems throughout the Southeast, Fay's remnants will be a godsend.

Fay To The Rescue

Hurricanes are not all bad--in fact, hurricanes and their more benign remnants can account for a significant portion of rainfall in some areas, especially the southeastern U.S., which currently is in the grip of prolonged drought.

Tropical Storm Fay, which is expected to become a minimal (Category 1) hurricane before making landfall on Florida's west coast in a couple of days, could be a godsend to parched southerners.

If Fay sticks to the National Hurricane Center's current forecast track, it could bring a good drenching to just those areas that need it the most.

Here's the current U.S. drought monitor map for the the Southeast and the current forecast track for Fay. Let's hope Fay is a wet one and that the Hurricane Center's current track is accurate.

When It Rains, It Pours

Our drought in Northern Virginia, and probably most of Virginia, is over after the 2-3 additional inches of rain we had Thursday night and into Friday, with another quarter inch thrown in for good measure early this morning.

But nooooooooo, that's not enough. Now we're told another 2-3 inches of rain is on it's way tomorrow night and into Monday. We hope points south, which are still dry, will get a good deal of it.

Meanwhile, we're ready for a bit o' sunshine.

Steady Drought Progress

As the two images above show, the historic drought in the Southeast has eased dramatically over the past four months as La Nina has loosened its grip and a steady stream of storms has rumbled through the region.

The first image is the current drought map for the region; the second is from December 25, 2007--a dry Christmas indeed. Virginia is still dry, but not nearly as much so as in December. On these maps, brownish-red means "exceptional drought," red="extreme drought," brown="severe drought," light brown="moderate drought," and yellow="abnormally dry." Late last year, more than 45% of the Southeast was classified as "extreme drought" or worse; today less than 10% of the Southeast falls in the extreme drought category and none in the extraordinary drought category.

Who knows--maybe Georgia won't even have to go to war with Florida, Alabama and Tennessee so that Atlantans can water their lawns!

Southeast Drought: Not Quite So Dry, Thank You

The record-breaking drought that has gripped the Southeastern U.S. for the better part of a year continues to alleviate, although a couple dry months, especially in the summer, would put the region right back where it was.

At right is the current map from the U.S. Drought monitor, which shows, for the first time in many months, that no part of the Southeast in now classified as in an "exceptional" drought. Three months ago, nearly of a quarter of the Southeast was in an exceptional drought state, so that's considerable improvement.

By the same token, it's still dry: 75% of the region continues to be "abnormally dry" or worse, which is still better than 90% at the beginning of the year.

The big question: will municipalities in the South--especially fast-growing ones such as in and around Atlanta and the Research Triangle in NC--learn from this drought and invest in much-needed reservoir capacity, or will they just wait for the next one, which could be worse? (I.e., will they be like San Diego, after a round of wildfires earlier in the decade, which did nothing to expand it's fire coverage, or will they take the right steps to assure adequate water supplies?)

Southeast Drought Breaking--Maybe Georgia Won't Have To Steal Tennessee's Water After All

Periodically we've reported on the prolonged drought that has plagued much of the Southeast, to the point that Georgia, Alabama and Florida are in a virtual water war over the federal reservoir at Lake Lanier, Georgia.

Atlanta and its burgeoning suburbs, in particular, have been hard hit because (1) they haven't bothered to invest in or plan for their growth, and (2) they aren't too interested in making sacrifices to conserve water.

The latest gambit out of Georgia has been a grab for the Tennessee River. Resurrecting a centuries old border dispute, the Georgia legislature--which is generally conservative until its constituents get thirsty over their own lack of investment in water infrastructure--declared its intent to move the border with Tennessee northward so that Georgia could share in the Tennessee River's bounty.

(One Tennessee mayor, taking the move good naturedly, recently declared a give your neighbor a drink day and sent a truckload of bottled water to the Georgia capitol.)

The good news for belligerent Georgia's neighbors is that the drought finally appears to be breaking. Although the Southeast remains unusually dry, the percentage labelled as "exceptional drought" has declined from 31.5% to only 9% in the past three months. Still, just 18% of the Southeast is normally hydrated--up from only 8.6% three months ago--so there's a long way to go.

In Virginia, things are okay right around D.C., but just a little to the west and south it starts to get dry, and right now 93% of the state is in some degree of drought, so we could use a couple good rain (or snow?) storms.

Georgia Loses A Big One In Water Battle With Florida, Alabama

We've previously reported on the "water war" between Georgia, on the one hand, and Florida and Alabama on the other. (See "Will Florida v. Georgia Water Fight Become Political?")

The battle centers on control of the water in the massive Lake Lanier reservoir, north of Atlanta, which was built by the federal government to provide hydroelectric electricity to the region. Lake Lanier flows into the Apalachicola River, which in turn provides the water for needed for cooling Alabama's largest nuclear reactor, and then flows on southward through Florida, where it is vital to the health of the fish, wildlife and shellfish of Apalachicola Bay.

The reason for the fighting is that Lake Lanier has been shrinking, in large part due to a sustained drought in the Southeast, and in no small part because of the increased demands for drinking water in Atlanta's burgeoning 'burbs.

Georgia has tried to grab more of Lanier's water for itself, under the banner "people before animals." The Bush administration has tried to mediate the dispute, but with little success.

Georgia won an early round in court, obtaining a ruling that the Army Corps of Engineers could allocate greater water rights to the state, at the expense of Alabama and Florida. Yesterday, however, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals--which encompasses all three states--reversed that ruling, holding that Congress would have to approve of such a change. The case could be headed to the Supreme Court, but the 11th Circuit's ruling is likely to stand.

In any event, Georgia did not deserve to win this one. What Georgia wants is for the federal government to solve a state and local problem: to wit, Atlanta and its environs have, for years now, failed to plan for the future by funding their own reservoirs. Instead, they just decided that Lake Lanier would last forever--bad water planning.

Now that the chickens have come home to roost in the inevitable drought, Georgians prefer to simply take water from their neighbors, rather than own up to their profligacy. Indeed, water restrictions in north Georgia are still lax and widely ignored.

Georgia is one of the reddest states in the Union, represented by anti-tax social conservatives in Congress. Georgians remind us of San Diegans, who twice voted against funds for more fire stations despite wide acknowledgement that the city was highly vulnerable to wildfires, and then turned to the federal government for help.

Funny how all those anti-tax people are the first to ask for federal help when their own failure to plan and pay for services goes awry.

Inevitably, if the drought goes on much longer, the federal government will have to provide emergency assistance to Georgia. In the long run, however, Georgians need to take care of themselves, by planning and INVESTING in an adequate water infrastructure for future growth.

Big Storm Puts Dent In Southeast Drought

The Great Southeastern Drought of 2007 may finally be starting to break up as a series of storms have brought rain to much of the Southeast in the past couple of months.

Here's a map showing yesterday's rainfall, with heavy amounts covering much of the hardest hit areas (which got more rain today).

Southeast Drought Getting Worse

The drought in the southeastern U.S. isn't getting any better. Shown at right is the latest map from the U.S. drought monitor.

At this point, only 8.6 percent of the territory of the southeastern states are NOT at some stage of drought, and more than 35% is at the most extreme level of drought--"exceptional."

The storm system moving through the East Coast today and tonight isn't helping much--while Pennsylvania and points north are getting pounded with precipitation (mostly frozen), Washington and points south are getting just a few showers--the basic pattern for the past six months.

The big talk around here is whether we'll get a snowstorm this weekend in D.C., or just rain. A better question might be: will we get anything? Certainly, points south of us would be delighted with rain, and lots of it.

Palm Beach Water Hogs

We keep seeing all these juicy stories on water hogs--folks using massive quantities of water in the midst of droughts and water restrictions.

We couldn't resist this one from the Wall Street Journal on what the wealthy denizens of West Palm Beach, Florida, are doing in the midst of a Florida drought that has resulted in limitations on water use.

While we were aghast at an Atlanta water hog who was siphoning off 400,000 gallons a month for his suburban mansion, consider food magnate Nelson Peltz's 14 acre estate in West Palm Beach, which uses 21 MILLION gallons of water per year.

Or Dwight Schar, Executive Chairman of home builder NVR, who used 14 MILLION gallons on his six acre estate. (Well, at least you figure a home builder's got to have a nice looking property, right?) [FYI: the Curmudgeon has averaged about 85,000 gallons per year for his eighth of an acre estate the past three years.]

Unlike singer Jimmy Buffet, who had to pay a $100 fine for violating watering restrictions in West Palm Beach, these guys aren't violating any laws, restrictions or guidelines. Which goes to show just how ineffective such restrictions can be when it comes to the big guys.

Here's a solution we favor: charge $1/gallon of water--hey, that would be a bargain at the grocery store--once a residential user exceeds a number that virtually any normal consumer would never approach (say 25,000 gallons per month--more than double what an average household uses). We doubt that even Peltz would be willing to pay $20 million a year for his water.

Raleigh Struggles With Drought

Hat tip to the Curmudgeon's sister for this one.

Earlier this week we reported on a water hog in drought-stricken Atlanta who was blithely using 400,000 gallons of water a month to fill the pool in his mansion and keep the grounds just as green and lush as if water was no object. (See Atlanta Water Hog Gets His Fifteen Minutes of Fame.)

Another city struggling with water woes is Raleigh, North Carolina. Raleigh is on the eastern end of a large part of the South that is experiencing a record, prolonged drought. Like many fast-growing cities in the region, Raleigh and its surrounding communities have not kept up with water demand over the years by building new reservoirs, and it is those municipalities that are struggling the most with this drought.

The Curmudgeon's sister, who lives in Raleigh, has been asked to cut back on water use by 50%--that ON TOP of previous reductions. It's thus no surprise that she--and many others in the region--are outraged that the town of Cary, NC--which adjoins Raleigh and shares the same water supply--decided a couple weeks ago to divert 1.2 million gallons of the precious fluid into filling three pools for a new aquatic center.

In one story out of Raleigh, the aquatic center's manager defended the move by saying it only took up one half of one percent of Cary's water needs for a week. That may be true, but think how that sits with a household trying to do its part to save water. The average home uses about 350 gallons of water a day. Reducing that by 50%--which isn't easy--would save 175 gallons per household. So the 1.2 million gallons poured into the Cary pools offset the daily reductions of nearly 7000 households. A lot of folks are likely to say "why bother"?

Dealing with a drought is tough. Most municipalities impose voluntary restrictions at first, and few have the resources to adequately enforce mandatory restrictions. Most people, of course, will pitch in and do their part. In the Raleigh area, that's pretty critical because they are down to roughly three months of water supply, which is a tiny margin.

One good way to deal with those who won't do their part is public opprobrium, which is why the Atlanta water hog is getting his time in the limelight.

Will Florida v. Georgia Water Fight Become Political?

The Southeast drought isn't getting any better--northern Georgia remains dry as a bone and Lake Lanier, which supplies water to several million Atlantans continues to dwindle. (This is where a good ol' hurricane or tropical storm could be a big help.)

Meanwhile, Georgia and Florida continue to fight over the allocation of water from Lake Lanier. The Bush Administration has tried to broker a deal between the two states (and also Alabama, which relies on Lanier water to cool a major nuclear power plant), but Florida officials have backed away from a temporary truce that would have cut water flow into the Apalachicola River, threatening the economy of Florida's Apalachicola Bay.

Florida's Secretary of Environmental Protection argues that the deal proposed by the Bush administration would cause a "catastrophic collapse of the oyster industry" in Apalachicola.

We wonder whether this dispute won't spill over into the presidential nominating contests, particularly with Florida being an early primary state. And while we're not sure the drought will last long enough to carry into the general election next November, it could become an interesting issue.

Florida, of course, is a battleground state, whereas Georgia is not. The Democratic nominee could easily afford to back Florida in the dispute, figuring Georgia is written off anyway. The Republican nominee couldn't afford to let Florida go, so he, too, would probably side with Florida.

Whether any of that will ultimately happen depends on whether the water situation in north Georgia remains desperate for another full year. In the meantime, the Bush administration has its hands full trying to placate three Southern Republican governors who are at each other's throats.

Drought Conditions Not Quite As Bad

Last week's four-day rainstorm put a nice little dent in the drought plagueing much of the Southeast, particularly in Virginia and the Carolinas. The relevant maps are below--you can get all this info at the drought monitor website.

The map and chart on the left show the drought as it currently stands (and the chart gives comparisons to prior periods of time). The map to the right shows the drought as it was just a week ago. As you can see, the darkest reddish-brown areas--meaning "exceptional" drought--have receded greatly from Virginia and central North Carolina.

While last week's rain was really welcome, we're already back to a dry pattern, with little rain in sight over the coming week or so. And the more southern states--Georgia and Alabama--have gotten virtually no relief now for many weeks. So, much as we like this nice fall weather, it would be nice to get some more rain every now and then.

Water War of the GOP Governors

Yesterday, in our post on the good drought news, we noted a brewing battle between Georgia, on the one hand, and Alabama/Florida on the other, over rights to water from dwindling Lake Lanier.

Today's Washington Post has a full front page story on the water war, which is causing a headache for President W since it involves carping between three Southern Republican governors. See "3 States Compete For Water From Shrinking Lake Lanier."

Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue, a right wing hack if we ever saw one, says its a battle of "man versus mussel" because Florida's claim to some of the water is based, in part, on the need to preserve a rare fresh water mussel. Alabama says it needs the water to keep a major nuclear reactor running. And Florida says its about much more than mussels--the water is needed to keep industry and fishing alive in Apalachicola Bay.

Florida and Alabama also accuse Georgia of waiting until far too late to initiate water conservation measures, which is largely true. Even now, Georgia's water restrictions are pretty loose for a situation where Atlanta says it has only two or three months of water left.

Meanwhile, the Army Corps of Engineers says there's still more than enough water to go around, at least for now.

So Bush has dispatched his Secretary of the Interior, Dirk Kempthorne, to mediate the dispute. We hope Georgia will get some much needed rain soon--the four day soaker that just left the Southeast helped with a lot of states, but largely bypassed Georgia. In the meantime, the worsening drought could result in some interesting political theater, as we're talking about a bunch that doesn't cotton to the notion of "sacrifice."

Just What The Drought Doctor Ordered!

Ah, three-four days of fairly steady rain, showers and drizzle. More than three inches of rain so far, spread out so that it will soak into the ground, while also replenishing streams, rivers, ponds and reservoirs.

This is just what the drought doctor ordered. It won't end our drought--we've been more than 10 inches below our average rainfall to date, and parts of Virginia to the west, and North Carolina to the south, have had it far worse. (Raleigh reportedly was down to just a couple months' water supply--a sure sign that the city needs to do some serious water-planning.) But, the amounts so far, with a bit more to come, will be a big help.

[If we get four inches, which is possible, that amounts to nearly 40 days worth of average rainfall here, so it at least wipes out most of the recent record dry spell we had.]

Next week's drought monitor (shown above, as of the beginning of this week, before the rain) will look a good deal different in Virginia and the Carolinas, with a lot less red.

Unfortunately, this storm hasn't done much to help the folks in north Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee, where the drought has been more severe for a longer period of time. Today's WSJ had an interesting article on the conflict over water in Georgia's Lake Lanier, between Atlanta, which gets all its water from the 50-year old reservoir, and Florida (and to an extent, Alabama), which depends on river flow from the lake to sustain wildlife-based industries around Apalachicola Bay.

We hope they'll get a similar storm before too long, or maybe a late season, wayward tropical storm, which is typically the way southeastern droughts end.

Southeast Drought a Bush Plot To Entrench Republicans?

Here it is the latter part of October and we're still wearing shorts here in Washinton.

What up with that?

Is it global warming? We can't say--it's almost impossible to link anomalies in our daily weather to longer term climate trends. After all, the weather is weird, somewhere, every year.

Nonetheless, in Washington--and much of the East Coast--we're looking at by far the warmest October on record. At present, October's temperatures here are running almost 10 degrees warmer than average (!) The record is around 6 degrees above average, and if temperatures were to revert to average for the rest of the month (as appears more or less likely), we'd easily smash the old record (set in 1984).

And who's to say that endless summer is no fun?

Unfortunately, our warm trend has been coupled with a very dry trend. Now, us golfers normally like warm and dry, but it does have to rain every now and then to keep the course in good shape. (Mondays would be good).

In fact, the drought is getting to crisis proportions in much of the Southeast. Could it be God's punishment for all those red states that so thoroughly supported Bush for President? [If we were any good at all with graphics, we'd superimpose the latest national drought monitor map on the electoral maps for 2000 and 2004--we think you'd see red for drought and red for Bush in just about the same places.]

Or maybe this is all part of a Bush/Rove plot: a secret NSA sponsored weather program to create a drought so severe that all the poor people in Atlanta and other Southern cities have to move out--i.e., a lot of African-Americans--thereby enhancing Republican majorities in those states, right before redistricting. Hey, it worked in New Orleans! Yep, that's what we think it is.

Even if it's not, here's one thing you can count on if big cities like Atlanta and Raleigh really do go dry: they won't get any help from ol' Bushie. Yes, he'll buzz by in Air Force one, maybe even turn the spigot on a water truck while the TV cameras are rolling, but don't expect any kind of meaningful help out of Washington. After all, the Republicans in those cities will find a way to help themselves.