LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) — There's no green in any of Central Texas rancher Gerry Shudde's pastures. Again.
Dry conditions are expected to worsen in the next six weeks and persist through at least February, weather officials said. The culprit is La Nina, a weather pattern that typically means less than normal rainfall and above normal temperatures.
"The screaming message will be the drier part, more so than the warmer," said Victor Murphy, a National Weather Service meteorologist. "Things are pretty much bad and going to get worse."
This month there has been no rainfall in Texas west of a line from the Dallas-Fort Worth area to Corpus Christi and none is expected in the next week.
In October and November, rainfall in far South Texas and far West Texas was only as much as 10 percent of normal. The Panhandle got a more reasonable 70 percent to 90 percent of normal. Most of the rest of the state is between 10 percent and 30 percent of normal.
The current U.S. Drought Monitor map, released last week, shows that 85 percent of Texas is between abnormally dry or worse, with extreme drought covering 3.8 percent of the state.
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See Texas agriculture braces for yet another drought
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-15/texas-agriculture-braces-for-yet-another-drought.html
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