COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Although we have been seeing a lot of wet weather recently, don’t let that fool you. Most of Texas is still in a drought. Recent weather has been a mix of sunny and stormy days. But the Texas State Climatologist said drier and hotter days are on the horizon.
“During the summer about now until September, typically evaporation is much larger than the precipitation amount so things dry out and they dry out a lot faster during a drought so we see bigger drought impacts during the summertime.” John Nielsen-Gammon, State Of Texas Climatologist said.
He said it has been relatively dry in Bryan college station for most of the fall, winter and spring just until the last week.
"It’s been partly due to the La Niña conditions in the tropical pacific usually means drier conditions in the south of the united states during the wintertime," he said. "I’ve seen a lot of drought relief around the state with the rainfall so we still got some very serious drought in parts of Texas and West Texas.”
In times without water, droughts have the biggest impact on agriculture and fire.
"There’s also farming that relies on the rainfall that comes and then it’s important to have rainfall fairly regularly during the summer. If you go a couple of months w/o rain, then things are going to dry out and crops are going to fail. The ranchers in the area also rely on reasonably steady rainfall, you got grasses that like to grow in the wintertime, for the cool season," Nielson-Gammon said.
Professor Nielsen Gammon said now is a critical time to recover from the previous dry periods.
"This period of time May and June is the wettest time of year on average for Brazos Valley, so this is a great time to recover from drought and we have plenty of opportunity for weather, it’s also a critical time for rainfall because you don’t get much rain now, this means the soils will dry faster.
He adds as temperatures go up in the summer, the dryer it will get.
Professor Nielsen Gammon said springtime fire season is another thing to watch out for when in a drought.
