Extreme Weather.
Now in its third year, the current drought has many Georgians wondering if the state will ever returnto normal weather. But state climatologist David Stooksbury saysthe drought is part of a historically more normal climate pattern.Stooksbury, who is also a professor of engineering in the Universityof Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences,doesn’t see drought as strange or even unusual. But that doesn’tmean the state will be a desert anytime soon.”The state has now returned to a more normal climate pattern,with greater year-to-year variability,” Stooksbury said.Drought is part of the overall history of the Southeast, he said.The history also contains long periods of wetter weather.”We will have more years that are extremely wet and moreyears that are extremely dry, which is historically the more common pattern,” he said.Unusually Mild WeatherFarmers and others looking back now recall extended times of wet,mild weather in the 1960s and ’70s. That weather makes the currentdrought seem that much more unusual. But those days weren’t the”normal” that people think they were.”If you look back at droughts, the ’60s and ’70s were theabnormal years,” Stooksbury said. “They had very littlevariation.”In the ’60s, central Georgia had only one month of drought. Andthroughout the ’70s, the same area had only 13 months of moderate,extreme or severe drought.Drought Still Grips StateThough rains brought relief to parts of the parched state in September,Georgia remains under drought conditions. As of Oct. 27, the soilmoisture in 80 percent of the state was short to very short.State water restrictions remain in effect.The severity of the drought varies from region to region, Stooksburysaid. Georgia is the largest state east of the Mississippi River,and the state has a diverse landscape. This allows for variationsin the drought’s severity. The state’s northwestern corner isin mild drought, the west central area in severe drought and thesouth central part near normal for this time of year.A drought doesn’t start during summer. It’s what happens the winter before that marks the severity of a drought.”Wetter” Winter ExpectedWinter rains usually replenish the state’s soil moisture and thegroundwater supplies lost during the year. However, the past twowinters haven’t brought the needed rain.With the dissipation of the Nino family — for now — Stooksburysaid the state will probably return to near-normal rainfall thiswinter.”The global ocean temperature pattern is close to neutral,which means we don’t have the more robust, forcing pattern forthe weather,” he said. The state is less likely to have thewet winter of El Nino, but it’s also less likely to have the drywinter of La Nina.”We don’t have a well-defined guide for this winter,”Stooksbury said. “But we’ll tend toward a more normal winter.”He said another El Nino event is possible for the 2001-2002 winter.It would still take several months of above normal rainfall topull out of the drought, he said. Even normal rainfall throughwinter will not solve the problem.Going into the next growing season, Stooksbury believes the statewill have adequate soil moisture to germinate seeds. But groundwaterand deep-soil moisture levels will remain low.”We should have enough moisture in the top soils to get thecrops up,” Stooksbury said. “But there won’t be muchof a cushion for next year.”