Record drought, heat grip island

As an exceptional drought grips the state, Galveston County has set records both for heat and the lack of rainfall dating to the 19th century, a meteorologist said Tuesday.

June set the mark for the highest monthly average temperature since the National Weather Service began keeping handwritten temperature records on the island in 1874, Meteorologist Charles Roeseler said.

The weather service has been tracking League City data since 1994.

April 1 through June 30 also broke every three-month drought record in Galveston since 1871, the year the service began keeping precipitation records, Roeseler said.

April and May also were among the top driest and hottest months, with April the third warmest and May the seventh warmest in terms of average temperatures on record.

The combination of record drought and heat have a way of fostering the status quo.

“It does build a little cycle,” Roeseler said. “The drier you are the warmer you get, and it feeds on itself. Unfortunately, they do play off each other.”

There is not much relief from the July forecast, which predicts a stationary, high-pressure ridge sending the potential for storms north or south of the state.

Why is it so hot and dry? La Niña, a cooling of the equatorial waters, normally brings drier winters and springs. This year’s one of the strongest since the 1950s, Roeseler said.

The mere mention of global warming hastens a negative reaction among some, Roeseler said.

“The cause is debatable, but data strongly supports we are getting warmer,” Roeseler said.

Rainfall Down Since Ike

The lack of rainfall has worsened since Hurricane Ike’s Sept. 13, 2008, landfall. The island is about 29 inches below normal in those three years. This year also marked the sixth driest start to a year in recorded history, and the island is at least 15 inches below normal for rainfall in that time, Roeseler said.

The latest data from the U.S. Drought Monitor shows 72 percent of Texas in an exceptional drought, the most severe drought category, and all but 15 of the state’s 254 counties are under a burn ban.

The ban, which remains in effect for Galveston County, is derived from the Keetch-Byram Drought Index, which measures the moisture in the soil. Zero means the soil is saturated, and 800 means the soil is virtually devoid of moisture.

Recent fires in East Texas have burned tree trunks 3 to 4 feet into the ground, which normally is only seen in arid West Texas, Roeseler said.

Galveston County on Tuesday was listed at 646 on the index, but the 14-day outlook predicts a 701 index for the county, which normally is in the 400 to 500 range for this time of year, Roeseler said.

The exceptional drought has forced League City and Galveston to enact watering restrictions, limiting landscape irrigation to two days a week.

Cotton Production Down

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples blogged on the department’s website about the grim drought outlook and its effect on the state’s cotton crop. Texas produced 43 percent of the nation’s cotton crop in 2010, he said.

This year could be the first time there is a 100 percent abandonment of the 2 million-acre dryland cotton crop that the Plains Cotton Growers service around Lubbock. The area produces 80 percent of the state’s cotton, Staples said.

The reduction in cotton production would be “bad news” for the $1.4 billion cotton industry and it’s 38,100 employees. It would also affect the cost of clothing, he said.

“Let’s keep our cotton farmers, and the communities that depend on them, in our prayers during these severe drought conditions and extremely challenging times,” Staples wrote.

If there is a silver lining in the cloudless skies, Roeseler predicted, based on conflicting weather models, a somewhat normal winter for precipitation.

“I’m straddling the fence that it will be normal,” he said.

Roeseler, a meteorologist for 19 years, said he would be among those wishing for a tropical storm to bring rain to the area, minus the devastating winds.

“I don’t know how else we’re going to break it,” Roeseler said. “A very wise man once told me, ‘Every Texas drought ends with a flood.’”