Agricultural producers across the country are dealing with drought conditions with the Southeast dealing with exceptional and extreme drought. USDA Meteorologist Brad Rippey provides details on these conditions.
Rippey said, “If you include the abnormally dry conditions, D0, and add that to the drought, we have surpassed 80% of the country in either D0 or one to four drought categories, D1 to D4. As we look at some of the history of the U.S. Drought Monitor, which goes all the way back to late 1999, we are seeing a very rare occurrence as we approach that 60% drought coverage. There have only been two other droughts in the history of the Drought Monitor where we have seen U.S. drought coverage greater than 60%. First of all, back in the historic drought of 2012-2013, we saw a combined total of 25 weeks, starting in July of 2012 and ending in early January of 2023, where drought coverage was greater than 60%, with a peak of 65.45% on September 25, 2012.”
“Then during the drought of the early 2020s, we saw five weeks in 2022 where U.S. drought coverage was greater than 60%. We see almost half of our U.S. states, 24 of them, with some degree of either extreme or exceptional drought or both. And then moving on into the southeast, Florida is actually the highest in the country, D3 to D4 coverage of nearly 80%, closely followed by Georgia at 63%,” said Rippey.
Audio Reporting by Dale Sandlin for Southeast AgNet.