Where Oh Where is the Rain?? The drought of 2012 has grown to epic, never before seen size proportions, and is taking its toll on whole lot of people all over the country. Is their relief in sight? Not in the next few months, experts are saying. The drought of 2012 has caused many problems for our farmers, scorched millions of acres of forest and grasslands, and has President Obama scrambling to get relief to those in need. Just how big is this drought we are experiencing? According to the U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM), it’s the largest drought ever recorded in their 13 years they have been monitoring drought conditions. According to the USDM, 62.9 percent of the contiguous U.S. was experiencing moderate to exceptional drought at the end of July. This is an increase of about 6.9 percent compared to the end of June. The maximum value of 63.9 percent reached on July 24, 2012 is the current record holding mark in the 13 year history of the USDM. The percent area of the country in the worst drought categories (extreme to exceptional drought) doubled, from 10 percent last month to 22 percent this month. The other major drought monitoring index is the Palmer Drought Severity Index. This index has been tracking drought conditions for all of the 20th century, much longer than the USDM. The Palmer Drought Severity Index states that about 57 percent of the contiguous U.S. was experiencing moderate-to-extreme drought. The last time drought was this extensive was way back in December of 1956 when about 58 percent of the nation was in moderate-to-extreme drought. The following map is produced in partnership between the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). This map shows just how extensive the size of the drought is currently. Two of the biggest contributors to this drought is the lack of precipitation and record warmth we have experienced dating all the way back to August of 2011. The biggest impact of the two has been the temperatures. According to the NOAA, the August 2011-July 2012 period was the warmest 12-month period of any 12 months on record in the contiguous U.S., narrowly surpassing the record broken just last month for the July 2011-June 2012 period by .07 degrees Fahrenheit. The nationally-averaged temperature of 56.1 degrees Fahrenheit was 3.3 degrees above the long term average. Every single state across the contiguous U.S. had warmer than average temperatures for the period, except Washington, which was near normal. The tail end of this 12 month average is where the affects have been felt the most. The average temperature for the contiguous U.S. during July was 77.6 degrees. 3.3 degrees above the 20th century average, marking the warmest July and all-time warmest month of record for the nation in a period of record that dates back to 1895. The previous warmest July for the nation was July 1936, when the average U.S. temperature was 77.4 degrees. As mentioned earlier the other big impact of the drought is the lack of precipitation the country is receiving. Some impressive precipitation numbers again given to us by the NOAA say the first seven months if 2012 were drier than average, ranking as the 15th driest January-July on record. Below average precipitation totals were observed for a large portion of the country, with 12 states having January-July precipitation totals among their ten driest. Although not quite as impressive as our temperature extremes, when you couple it together it produces this extreme drought we are experiencing. All of this extreme temperatures and above average dryness has left crops and livestock devastated from the Great Plains to the Midwest. Research done by the USDA shows that the drought has rapidly increased in severity over the past month. As of August 1st, more than half of the counties had been designated as disaster areas in 2012, mainly due to drought. Severe or greater drought is impacting 65 percent of the cattle production, and about 75 percent of the corn and soybean production. More than 80 percent of the acres of major field crops planted in the United States are covered by Federal crop insurance, which can help to mitigate yield or revenue losses for covered farms. The USDA says the ongoing drought is expected to destroy or damage a portion of the field corn crop in a number of States, an increase in the farm price of corn has already occurred and additional increases will depend on the extent of the drought. Also of note, we will likely see impacts within two months for beef, pork, poultry and dairy (especially fluid milk) later this year and into 2013. An Obama Team is attempting to help drought stricken farmers. Dan Steinkruger is the state executive director for the Nebraska Farm Service Agency. He wants to make sure to get the message across that President Obama has called the U.S. governments approach to drought assistance an “all hands-on-deck effort,” and he has directed USDA and other federal agencies to find additional ways to help those impacted by the drought. Dan says that the President has convened ongoing meetings of the White House Rural Council to ensure that all federal agencies are doing everything they can to help. The biggest challenge that the president faces today in carrying out the relief effort is the fact that the 2008 Farm Bill disaster assistance programs expired at the end of last year. These programs were implemented under Obama and prior to expiring delivered more than 400,000 disaster assistance payments totaling more than $4 billion to U.S. farmers and ranchers. Another big impact of this year’s major drought is the fires being experienced in Western United States. The warm and dry conditions over a large portion of the country were associated with ideal wildfire conditions. Over 2 million acres were burned nationwide during the month of July alone due to wildfires, the USDM report says. Nearly a half a million acres above average, and the fourth most in the 13 year period of record keeping. A couple of the notable fires this summer was the Waldo Canyon fire that burned 347 homes and killed 2 people in Colorado Springs. The other being the Long Draw fire which burned 557,648 acres in Oregon and is by the largest fire in Oregon’s history. Wary firefighters all over the country are hoping for some relief. While not exactly the news the firefighters in the west were looking for, other parts of the drought stricken areas could have received some much needed relief. The rain from the remnants of Hurricane Isaac could have helped some of the hardest hit drought areas of the Mississippi River. Albeit the rains have appeared to help in the short term relief only, experts say it’s not enough for long-term relief for the vital waterway that is at its lowest level since 1988. Marty Pope, a hydrologist for the National Weather Service in Jackson, Missouri said that Isaac dumped rain on areas that feed the lower Mississippi, but it’s too little to bring the river back to normal levels for this time of year. Still, he said any relief helps and Isaac kept the river from falling even more. As for the rest of the drought ridden area, the NOAA outlook calls for above-average temperatures across the majority of the country for the August to October period. The outlook follows on the heels of the hottest January-July period on record for the contiguous United States that was discussed earlier. As far as precipitation is concerned? Again the NOAA forecast is bleak. The outlook outlines a bull’s-eye over the Corn Bekt where precipitation is expected to be below average. The report notes that “the self-perpetuation of regional drought conditions, with very dry soils and very limited evapotranspiration (the combination of water loss due to evaporation form ground sources and transpiration from plants), tends to inhibit widespread development of existing thunderstorm complexes. “ Jim Angel, climatologist from Illinois says “I kind of have given up hope for short-term relief.” The massive drought of 2012 is one of the largest droughts our country has ever seen. The impacts are effecting everyone all over the country from farmers and ranchers to firefighters and everyday normal household. With the short term forecast looking bleak everyone will start to wonder just how epic this drought of 2012 could become.