Storm's a'comin'... Eventually...

"For the rain it raineth every day."

William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Act V, scene 1

Delightfully, as we write this, a Pacific low pressure system is winding its way across Mexico, and will most likely bring us some much needed rain here in the Brazos Valley over the next few days.  While we recently heard a little league dad complain that there have been numerous rainout days this Spring, we also know that our rainwater collection ponds are both almost empty, in spite of the fact that usually at this time of year they are both overflowing.

What gives?  Well, what gives is this:  it has been raining as often as normal here in College Station, Texas, this year, but it has not been raining as much.  A sprinkle here, a sprinkle there, enough to irritate those infernal non-gardeners, but not nearly enough to satisfy those of us with even partially green thumbs.

In spite of the brief series of showers we are about to receive this week, we are fully aware that the lack of rain will continue to be a trend for the duration of this year, more than likely.  We will undoubtedly post about drought later this Spring/early Summer, as there are things an urban farmer can do to help your plants survive the dry heat we will all be feeling, but at present we merely wish to report on long term trends… because they are interesting, and because they have a great impact on what long term plans need to be scrapped, and which plans make sense.

For starters, know that heat and dry weather make for a self-sustaining loop in the central part of the United States.  We have come to loathe the mid-continental high pressure ridge that is a familiar feature of the summertime weather chart – it is a high pressure system with a center which variably anchors anywhere from the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex to somewhere over the Dakotas, and pushes or pulls 100°-plus temperatures with it wherever it goes.

So unless we get a series of torrential downpours over the next few months (and that does not appear likely), then the prediction of above average temperatures for the next few months does not bode well for the Brazos Valley even reaching its normal summertime precipitation levels – and keep in mind that these are normally our driest months of the year anyway, so getting even an inch of rain for the entire month of July would have to  be considered a minor miracle this year.

We fully expect, therefore, for our rainwater collection ponds to be completely dry within a couple of months, except for the water coming from our newfangled, high-falutin’ washing machine, which alas! is so efficient that it hardly puts out much water at all – certainly not enough to keep pace with evaporation in June/July/August, even if we manage to get every article of clothing we own dirty on a regular basis.

We also expect the raised garden beds we built this Spring to be burnt to a crisp if we were to attempt to plant anything remotely tender in them during this time period.  Hardy hot weather crops like amaranth will be okay, but anything else?  Forget it.

So, as you can see, we have to adjust our plans for the summer according to what the environment dictates – no experimenting with new crops, and no reliance on pond water.

What we can do is make improvements which might not otherwise be possible.  For example, one of our ponds is only about four feet deep at present.  As soon as it dries out, we can deepen it (hopefully as low as 10 feet), and finish off the fence line behind it, completing the physical barrier at the bottom end of our property.  Ironically, that would make this pond the only part of our yard which is in the 100 year flood plain, but that is a subject for another time…

Likewise, the pond at the top end of our property, where we collect both rain and washing machine water, is 8-10 feet deep at its lowest point… but only about 2-3 feet deep for roughly half its area.  We need to deepen it as well.

And when we are done digging big, dry holes in the ground?  We can add gutters to the roof of our house.  Our roof is roughly 1,000 square feet in area, and as a result, were we to collect water coming off the roof in gutters, and funnel it through the yard in appropriate new pipes or gulleys, we could fill both ponds with as little as 5” of rain.  Since we average 5” over the course of a summer, that would mean that in most years, as dry as we are, we could manage to water the garden from the ponds even in the hottest, driest time of the year.

And, as it turns out, these ambitious plans will probably take a good six months to complete…. which means we have plenty of time before the good news hits.  As it turns out, most statistical models are now suggesting that we are moving to a period of strong El Niño conditions starting some time this Fall.  Normally, the onset of ENSO-positive effects (wetter weather for the Southern U.S., drought for Australia and Polynesia) lags a good six months or so from the onset of the upwelling of warm water in the Eastern Pacific… and sure enough the NOAA long term charts show wetter weather for the Gulf Coast of the U.S. for the three month period of February/March/April of 2015.

So, to recap, the bad news is:  drought and hot weather for the rest of 2014 (though, with the coming of summer in a month or so, if this surprised you, there’s no hope for you).  Good news?  Wet weather is coming, and we have almost a year to get ready for it.  Here’s hoping this time a year from now we have to hold an umbrella over ourselves as we ponder what unusual goody to plant next.

Happy farming!

It's Summer in Texas.... Again...

“If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent Texas and live in Hell.”
--General Phil Sheridan

The Climate Prediction Center has good news and bad news for the next several months, depending on your point of view.  And there is good news to read between the lines, if you are willing to make predictions which could possibly be wrong – something climatologists have become a little gun-shy about.

The La Niña event of last year, in large measure responsible for the brutally hot and dry summer which, given that you are reading this, you presumably survived along with us at Myrtle’s place, has definitely desolved into ENSO-neutral conditions.  The odds (according to CPC) of the El Niño Southern Oscillation effect trending towards El Niño or statying ENSO-neutral are about 50-50.

Of course, we at Myrtle’s place put a lot more faith in the notion that things tend to change, and that inertia is the dominant feature of the universe – meaning in context that because we have just come out of two consecutive La Niña events, and water temperatures in the equatorial Pacific have been trending in the direction of an El Niño event, those temperatures are more likely than not to continue trending in that direction.

We could be wrong, of course, but we don’t think so.

We are more confident than the CPC, therefore, in predicting that the months of June and July will be brutal here in Texas, but that starting in August and September, that brutality should be replaced by more or less “normal” (by Texas standards) dog days.

Throughout much of the southern half of the country, and particularly here in Texas, temperatures will probably be well above average (both daytime highs and nighttime lows) for the next 8-12 weeks, and lingering effects from La Niña will keep the chances of precipitation fairly low during that time as well.  It may very well look and feel a lot like last year’s drought, frankly.

But there will be a couple of fundamental differences.

First, while the ground is still relatively dry, the fact that much of Texas has already received more rain in the first part of 2012 than it received in all of 2011 significantly reduces the chance for a repeat of last year’s self-perpetuating cycle.  The ground will not bake nearly so easily this year as it did last year, making it possible for scattered afternoon thunderstorms to develop in a pattern we remember fondly from yesteryear – and the cooling outflow from those storms mean even folk who don’t get rained on will at least get occasional relief from the heat.

Second, because La Niña has broken, the jet stream will not be so ridiculously absent from the Northern Plains during Summer 2012 as it was last year.  The infamous Butterfly Effect may be a bit too abstract for some to understand, but it should be easier to see that the lack of drought upstream from the Southern Plains makes it more likely that water will flow into the Southern Plains.  Further, on those occasions when the Jet Stream takes a slight detour southward from the Canadian border, it weakens – ever so slightly – the death grip that the summertime high pressure system which sits over the central United States exerts over our weather.

This anticyclone is the dominant feature of June-July-August forecasts, and is responsible in large measure for the fact that any storms which develop in these months are likely to be scattered and short-lived in nature.  Picture the region from Kansas south the the Gulf of Mexico as a giant crockpot (no, not “crackpot” though it is easy to see why you draw that connection); in the summertime this crockpot has a 10-ton elephant sitting on it.  That’s the summertime high pressure system.  Our pot of beans is not boiling over, no matter what.

Enter the third major difference between this year and last – if, as CPC hints, and we at Myrtle’s place firmly believe, El Niño makes an appearance starting in August of this year, that high pressure system which is usually huge (centered anywhere from Dallas to Topeka, and radiating outwards to include everything from Brownsville to Fargo) will shrink dramatically, and drift eastward.  That will mean instead of 105° August and September afternoons, we may be looking at a chilly 95° for the dog days.  Not much relief as far as a Yankee might be concerned, but danged if we Texans won’t be pulling out our long-sleeved shirts a few months early.

There will also, under this model, be increased chances for relieving rains during the August – September – October timeframe, though still not particularly high.  The real soaking rains from an El Niño don’t arrive until December and January.  So long as we get a repreive from the heat, we won’t be complaining.

Happy farming!