Drought, wildfires, and extreme weather — is this the new normal for Texas?
While conditions have improved since the inferno that was the summer of 2011, much of Texas remains in serious drought. According the latest U.S. Drought Monitor Map, 88 percent of the state is in some level of drought conditions, with over a quarter of Texas in “extreme” or “exceptional” drought. And the situation isn’t likely [...]
As record drought and heat in Texas have garnered more and more attention over the last few years, so did Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon, State Climatologist. Nielsen-Gammon says his position is part researcher, part adviser. “Basically, the job is to make sure the state makes the best use of weather and climate information,” he tells StateImpact Texas. [...]
For those watching and waiting for President Obama to take action on climate change, last night’s State of the Union address may have been an encouraging start. “If Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations, I will,” the president said. “I will direct my Cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take, [...]
Your Grandpa’s Cheeseburger Might Be Making You Sneeze For many Texans, ‘Cedar Fever’ has its own place in the region’s pantheon of demons, alongside the likes of the Chupacabra, Yolanda Saldivar, and chili with beans. If you’re one of those Texans, the onset of winter, when male mountain cedar plants release their pollen and set [...]
We’re sitting on the edge of a massive global transformation, where robots, globalization, consumption and pollution will all intersect to create a world that’s unlike anything humanity has every known, Former Vice President Al Gore argues in his new book, the aptly-titled ‘The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change.’ We spoke with the former Vice President [...]
Citing “the devastating impact of raging fires and crippling drought and more powerful storms” President Barack Obama put tackling climate change on a list of goals for his second presidential term today. In an inaugural speech that served to set an agenda for the next four years, the president said that failure to respond to [...]
A beef processing plant in Plainview, Texas will close its doors today, citing a dwindling cattle supply in the region. Wichita, Kansas-based Cargill Beef said in a press release that about 2,000 jobs will be lost. The supply issue was brought on primarily by “years of drought in Texas and the Southern Plains states,” the [...]
The rains that made their way across much of Texas last week were a welcome sight for the state, currently in its third year of drought. The latest U.S. Drought Monitor Map shows that drought levels decreased for the first time since October 2012. But they didn’t fall much. About seven percent of the state [...]
The Texas legislature got underway this week, and one bit of spending that many seem to agree on, regardless of their political stripes, is water. Several proposals call for funding the 2012 State Water Plan, a bottom-up approach to Texas’ water needs. It relies on regional districts to come up with a wish list of projects that [...]
As you’ve probably heard by now, the numbers are in: 2012 was the warmest year in recorded history for Texas (technically tied with 1921, due to rounding) and the country as a whole. New data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) show that 2012 was a full 3.2 degrees Fahrenheit above average, and [...]
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