It’s been stormy here in Atlanta. We’ve had a wet winter and rainy early spring. In a drought-stricken region like this, you tend to hear variations on the same joke every time it rains: “Well, I guess that pesky drought is over!”
With all the rain this week, some folks have once again been saying we’re out of the drought. Only this time, it was no joke.
Georgia’s state climatologist, David Stooksbury, declared the drought over this week. All of the good rain we’ve had lately has apparently pulled North Georgia out of its water shortage with the exception of Lake Lanier and Lake Hartwell basins. So as long as you don’t count the two lakes where we get a large part of the region’s water, the drought is over!
Wait, what?
Putting it in Perspective
Atlanta has been in drought for over a decade, and Stooksbury is saying that a few months of heavy rain have fixed the problem? It seems a little fishy, so I thought I’d see what other folks were saying about our water situation.
According to March 24th data from the U.S. Drought Monitor, the North Georgia region was in moderate to severe drought with a small area classified as “abnormally dry,” and even an area that is, indeed, drought-free! Here’s the map:
Could we have gotten enough rain in the past week to put our water woes behind us? It seems believable that maybe the region is now on the border of “abnormally dry” and moderate drought, but it’s a little irresponsible to declare that we’re free from drought. Atlanta is coming to the end of its wettest month of the year, and April, May, and June average far less rainfall than March.
I’m more inclined to believe this more cautious take on Atlanta’s water situation. Environmental Protection Division (EPD) Director Carol Crouch says that, “It’s going to take four consecutive months of returning to normal rainfall for conditions to be such that we could declare that a drought was over.” While the EPD checks other drought indicators like soil moisture and stream levels, watering restrictions for the area are still on. As far as the region’s water situation, I’d have to agree with Crouch when she said:
Regardless of whether it’s a normal year or a dry year, the need for people to connect to how they use water every day and be more efficient is just something that’s the right thing to do.
Well said! For some some great tips on conserving water, check out this post over at Planet Save.
Image Credits:
Gloomy Atlanta. Creative Commons photo by Saud Khan
U.S. Drought Monitor chat via The National Drought Mitigation Center
About Becky Striepe
Living in Australia we have LONG droughts but people always think they are going to end. With all this climatic chaos around us these days, maybe we are going to have drought (or what we used to call drought) as “the norm” and wet years will be the odd joyful experience.
I’d plan for drought being the norm, the worst that can happen is you have lots of water stored for a non-rainy day!
I think the drought can technically be over, and our water woes still be in full swing. This article over at the AJC (same paper, same day as the one you linked too) does a little better context on Stooksbury’s stance. He also call’s Lanier the 800-pound gorilla – noting that it is still a problem.
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/printedition/2009/03/31/drought0331.html
Why I say the drought can be over and the water problem not is that GA relies on lakes for drinking water — but has no natural lakes. Hence they don’t fill naturally — there’s no natural occuring system that fills them as the areas around recover — their filling will be slower that the natural recovery from drought.
So this water problem, in my eye is a man made one — and thus the solution will have to be man made as well.
I don’t know if we got enough water in a week to change that graph, but it will be interesting to see when they update it. I do know that lanier rose nearly a foot and a half during that time.
http://water.sam.usace.army.mil/gage/acf/prob1.txt
It’s actually very understandable: You barely eat anything daily for 15 days; you eat a big as sating meal on the sixteenth. There may be little to say that for the next week you’ll have enough to eat, but, for atleast a short period after that meal, it can be said that you’re not starving. For a shorter period it can even be said that you’re not even hungry.
that last quote is so on the mark. There’s a big stigma against “environmentalism,” that global warming is a myth and the treehuggers are crying wolf but… well, so what if they ARE? is going to kill you to conserve our resources? is it a bad thing to do good things for this world we live in?? so why not just make eco-conscious decisions anyway, whether or not there is or ever will be global warming, melting icecaps or droughts!!