How Dry I Am

People always talk about the weather but can do nothing about it.  That has always been true and always will, I suppose.  But weather is a fascinating topic for me.  I’ve already talked about some of the differences between Alabama’s weather and climate and Colorado’s.  But after being away for more than thirty years, I had clearly forgotten just how great those differences are.  Now, after being back for four months, I can take a fresh look.

The talk this year has been about the drought that has gripped much of the United States.  The Midwest has been hard hit with many farmers saying they will harvest no corn (maize) this year.  Colorado has been plagued by more than the usual summer forest fires that have destroyed hundreds of homes along the Front Range.  In addition, a severe dry spell has gripped its eastern plains drying up pasturage and forcing ranchers to cut down on the sizes of their herds.  Even in Alabama drought has made its mark, but that mark has been hard for someone like me to see.

In a typical year, my old home of Boulder would receive 18 inches/460 mm of precipitation along with more than 300 sunny days.  The climate is semi-arid and the high elevation of 5430 feet/1655 m accentuates this.  So a drought there was quite pronounced.  The one that came in 2002 was particularly severe and its signature event was a forest fire that burned more than 200,000 acres/80,000 hectares.  We got little snow that winter and the summer monsoon rains did not fall so everyone was urged to conserve as much water as possible until the weather improved.

By contrast, Birmingham receives 54 inches/1380 mm during the year—triple what Boulder would expect.  The drought that has hit the country hasn’t spared Alabama, particularly its easternmost counties, but as I look around town, I see little evidence of it.  The trees are still green and many are blossoming as they should.  Right now, the crepe myrtles are displaying their white and magenta flowers.  The lawns around here are as verdant as ever.

However, summer in the Deep South is nothing like its counterpart in the High Plains and Rocky Mountains of the West.  Both regions can see hot days with temperatures over 100°F/38°C.  Alabama has already had more than half a dozen of those this summer and we’ll have more before the season ends.  We have had a dry spell here as well, but what Alabamians call a dry spell wouldn’t even merit mention by Coloradans.

In Alabama, a week without rain is cause for worry.  People start to complain about how dry it is and they feel the ground and soil becoming hard.  When I returned at the end of March, it took me some time to get used to walking on soft spongy ground with its springy turf.  I didn’t have that luxury in Colorado where the ground was often hard packed and the soil was thin and stony.

So when meteorologists, farmers, gardeners and ordinary folks started talking about the drought in Alabama, I could only shake my head.  So far, Birmingham has seen 28.49 inches/718.57 mm of precipitation this year.  That is 4.66 inches/118.36 mm short of its normal totals for this date.  I tell people here they have no idea of what a real drought is; no idea of what it means to go weeks, even months, with little or no precipitation; no idea of what it means to live under a loud sun in a cloudless sky that turns your soil to stone as it sears and withers crops and gardens.

A few weeks ago when thunderstorms ended a heat wave of four consecutive 100°+F/38°+C days, I was shopping in a market as the lightening flashed and thunder pealed out of the sky.  One of the staff told me how happy he was to see the rain because the “drought” was becoming serious.

“What drought?” I asked.

“Why, the one that has been hitting us over the head this last week!” he exclaimed.  “I mean the weather has been so hot and dry that I couldn’t stand it anymore.  Didn’t you think so?”

I gave him a bitter smile and then said, “I come from a place where 20 inches (510 mm) of precipitation in a year would be cause for celebration and rejoicing.  Y’all get three times the amount of rainfall in a typical year than the folks back home get.  This last heat wave and dry patch would be considered normal there.”

“Where’s ‘back home’?” he asked.

“Boulder, Colorado,” I answered.

His eyes got wide.  “You’ve lived in Cadarada?  (Practically everyone in Alabama says “Colorado” that way.)  Man!  That’s a real beautiful place from everything I’ve seen and heard.  But I didn’t know that about the climate.  Do y’all get a lot of snow there?”

“About 80 inches (2032 mm) in a typical winter,” I said.  “And snow falls from October to April so winter is a fact of life there.  But I loved it and will always remember it fondly.”

That conversation sums up many of the differences between my old home and the new.  When I saw the forest fires ravaging Waldo and Poudre Canyons on TV, I cried.  My family had lots of questions about the fires and the role they play in forest ecology which I was able to answer.  The fires were another vivid example and demonstration that I am now living in a completely different part of the country.  The South is blessed with abundant moisture and in amounts that would astonish Westerners. 

Eastern Alabama has indeed had a dry spell with lost crops and water levels in creeks, rivers and lakes well below normal.  Water problems are easing elsewhere in this state as rainfall has increased significantly lately.  However, much of the South is facing a water crisis.  That is particularly true along the Mississippi River where the Army Corps of Engineers has found it necessary to dredge the river’s bottom in many places to assure that barge traffic will continue to move.  Big sandbars have appeared, halting recreational boating and silting in marinas and docks.

I have learned that drought means different things to people depending on their geography.  In the semi-arid to arid West, Mark Twain’s observation that “whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting” is still true.  The difference of a few inches can make or break an agricultural year.  Water’s scarcity was the root cause for many of the range wars that were fought in the past; and even today, Western cities quarrel with one another over water rights. 

In the South, while water is much more plentiful, that abundance is offset by the huge population.  A prolonged dry spell can have a drastic impact on the recreational and tourist industries and the many jobs tied in with them, not to mention the effect on agribusiness.  Alabama’s agricultural products are sold all over the world.  Why, I have cousins who farm in north Alabama’s Tennessee River Valley growing soybeans for export to markets in the Far East.  I’m sure the summer rainfall deficit is a matter of serious concern for them.

This year has been a hard one with respect to water over much of the country.  Yes, I’ve laughed at Southerners’ definition of a drought, but that doesn’t mean the anxiety and fear they felt weren’t legitimate.  I’m relearning what water means to different people even in my own country.  A Colorado forest fire ignited by dry lightning is just as disastrous as an Alabama crop being lost to drought.  In both cases, the lack of water has brought pain to many people.