Climate

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Drought, wildfires, and extreme weather — is this the new normal for Texas?

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July 16, 2012

Join Us Tuesday Night for a Special Listening Session of ‘Life By the Drop’

Tomorrow night at the Cactus Cafe we’ll be hosting a special free listening session for our documentary on the drought, ‘Life By the Drop: Drought, Water and the Future of Texas,’ a collaboration with Texas Monthly and KUT News. We’ll be on hand, along with Texas Monthly Editor Jake Silverstein and KUT’s Matt Largey, as part of […]

July 13, 2012

Drought Update: How Things Are Going Depends on Where You Are

It’s been an interesting role reversal for Texas weather these past couple of months. June, typically the state’s wettest month, was bone dry. But the high summer, a time of highly variable precipitation, has been downright soggy, especially this current week. Of course, we aren’t complaining. What does all this wet weather mean for the […]

July 11, 2012

How Climate Change Exacerbated the Drought

Last year, Texas suffered the worst single-year drought on record. It resulted in nearly $10 billion dollars in losses to crops, livestock and timber in Texas, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In a new report from NOAA, “State of The Climate,” the agency suggests that thanks to climate change, Texas is likely to see […]

Coming Thursday: A Discussion on Drought and Water Issues in Texas

Thursday night at the University of Texas at Austin you can attend a special event from our ‘Life By the Drop’ series, Solutions for the Looming Water Crisis in Texas. Texas Monthly senior editor Nate Blakeslee will moderate a panel of experts and officials discussing what Texas can do to ensure it has enough water […]

Texas’ Biggest Cash Crop, Cotton, Makes Gradual Rebound

Texas is cattle country, an image known the world over. What’s perhaps not so well known is the primacy of the other big C: Cotton. In fact, Texas has led the country in cotton production for over a century. The fate of the state’s cattle industry as it recovers from last year’s drought is well […]

July 6, 2012

Latest Drought Outlook: Those Dreaded Words ‘Persist or Intensify’

NOAA The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center released the latest drought outlook this week. This is a prediction of what lays ahead in the next three months, and the news for Texas isn’t great: for much of the state, the drought is expected to “persist or intensify.” It was a different story this spring. […]

To Break the Drought, Hoping for a Perfect Storm

It’s a typical summer in Texas: hot and dry with occasional bursts of scattered showers. But as the state continues to recover from a historic drought, more than typical weather is needed. One way the state can receive precipitation during the summer’s dog days is a tropical storm. Of course, such an event can do […]

July 5, 2012

The Kids Are All Right: The Lower Colorado Is Low on Oxygen

Some high school ecological enthusiasts have collected new data showing the Lower Colorado river ecosystem might be in jeopardy. The river not only supplies much of Texas with its drinking water, it’s also a cherished destination for summer recreation. But all is not well on the Colorado, and authorities might not have known about the […]

For Texas Ranchers, the Grass Isn’t Always Greener

Last year’s drought dried up hay fields, sent feed prices through the roof and forced many Texas ranchers to sell off large portions of their herds. And while winter rains helped ease the drought in Central and East Texas, they weren’t enough to wipe it out completely. Yes, grass initially came back on the ranches of Central […]

July 3, 2012

For Texas Bays and Beaches, Pick Your Poison: Rainfall or Drought

We find ourselves at a bit of a catch-22 under the state’s historic drought. On the one hand, the lack of rainfall is creating a struggle for wildlife. When hot temperatures cause evaporation, salt remains, and that increases the salinity of the water in Texas bays. “You definitely saw the salinities were really high [during […]

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