{"id":2599,"date":"2011-12-01T09:51:32","date_gmt":"2011-12-01T15:51:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=2599"},"modified":"2012-02-09T16:36:23","modified_gmt":"2012-02-09T22:36:23","slug":"the-texas-drought-as-seen-from-space-things-dont-look-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2011\/12\/01\/the-texas-drought-as-seen-from-space-things-dont-look-good\/","title":{"rendered":"The Texas Drought, As Seen from Space (Things Don’t Look Good)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Map by NASA<\/p>

Groundwater and Soil Moisture in the U.S.<\/p><\/div>\n

A drought is a strange type of disaster. While hurricanes, tornadoes and floods do their damage quickly and dramatically, drought is like a slow death, a drying out of life and land. A house can be rebuilt after a flood recedes, but with a drought all you can do is wait for rain. And wait.<\/p>\n

We may have to wait a little longer. A new NASA map<\/a> shows that groundwater and soil moisture levels in Texas are at their “lowest levels seen in more than 60 years.” The maps show a large, maroon crescent over much of the populated regions of Texas (the line almost seems to mirror the I-35 Interstate at a glance).<\/p>\n

This wide swath across Texas indicates “severely depressed groundwater levels,” according to NASA, and “shows that the level of dryness over the last week [has] occurred less than two percent of the time between 1948 and the present.”\u00a0The months since the drought began have been the driest on the books since record keeping in Texas began in 1895 \u2013 an average of only 11.1 inches of rain.<\/p>\n

Is there an end in sight? “Texas groundwater will take months or longer to recharge,” Matt Rodell, a hydrologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said in NASA’s report. “Even if we have a major rainfall event, most of the water runs off,” he said. “It takes a longer period of sustained greater-than-average precipitation to recharge aquifers significantly.”<\/p>\n

Though there was some good news this week with the release of the latest state drought monitor report. The numbers show that recent rains have helped ease the situation somewhat, with 52 percent of the state in the “exceptional” drought state, compared to 81 percent three months ago. But 82 percent of the state remains in “extreme” drought:<\/p>\n

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The current drought \u201chas been the most intense one-year drought in Texas since at least 1895 when statewide weather records begin,” state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon reported to lawmakers recently, “and\u2026 it probably already ranks among the five worst droughts overall.\u201d<\/p>\n

“Over a long-term dry period there will be an effect on groundwater storage and groundwater levels,” Rodell said in the NASA report. “It’s going to drop quite a bit, people’s wells could dry out, and it takes time to recover.”<\/p>\n

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