Is your area having a drought?

[UB]

Today from our local South African newspaper:

Patna India: Farmers in and eastern Indian state have asked their unmarried daughters to plough parched fields naked in a bid to embarrass the weather gods to bring some badly needed monsoon rain, officials say.

"This is the most trusted social custom in in the area and the villagers have vowed to continue..until it rains very heavily" said an official from Banke Bazaar."

If rain does not come for a long time, it may also be a way to get a large increase in tourism.

[The new erato]

Definitely no:



A current newspaper picture from the local newspaper.

[karlhenning]

That pic could have been taken on my walk to work in Boston this morning.

[DavidW]

I live in Oklahoma, and in this area (especially Texas) we have been hit by severe heat waves and drought that is caused the loss of billions of dollars due to the inability to sufficiently feed the cattle (due to crop shortages).  It's even made the national news.  I'm just glad that the heat wave finally broke, highs in the 90s is much cooler than highs in the 100s.

[Brian]

I live in Oklahoma, and in this area (especially Texas) we have been hit by severe heat waves and drought that is caused the loss of billions of dollars due to the inability to sufficiently feed the cattle (due to crop shortages).  It's even made the national news.  I'm just glad that the heat wave finally broke, highs in the 90s is much cooler than highs in the 100s.

Down here in San Antonio we have had .43 inches of rain over the last 30 days, and so far during the year 2009 we have a grand total of 7.91 inches (historical average: 19). 11 of the last 12 days have seen highs above 100 Fahrenheit (38 C).

Our local newspaper says the drought is "extreme." Here are a couple pictures from the paper...

[Taxes-]

I don't think we've had two straight days without rain in weeks here.

[robnewman]

They are predicting a heat wave in England that will last for several weeks, starting next week. It has rained quite a lot in the past few weeks.

[Lethevich]

They are predicting a heat wave in England that will last for several weeks, starting next week. It has rained quite a lot in the past few weeks.

This is a thing I very much enjoy about British weather - when it does extremes of weather, it is inevitably countered by the opposite extreme after a while so in terms of natural resources, things seem to balance out.

A month ago when it was baking hot for a week, I thought that we might be getting one of those Spanish summers that people have been predicting for 10 years due to global warming, but then came the days of pissing rain. It's glorious.

[Dr. Dread]

[UB]

Brian and others with drought problems maybe you should suggest that your local farmers try what they are doing in India to solve the drought. No matter the results, it would certainly make front page news in the US.

[Ten thumbs]

I don't think we've had two straight days without rain in weeks here.

We had St Swithin's Day last week, so I'm not expecting much improvement for a while. Sounds like they could do with this rain in Spain to put out the fires.