Last Year I wrote extensively about the drought conditions here in Kansas.
Luckily, we had a very wet winter and spring this year, catching us up on our annual precipitation data, but since the beginning of June, the rain has stopped (maybe even longer, I’m just relying on memory, not real data here).
As much as I dislike hot weather, I dislike drought even more. I feel as though I, as well as my plants and yard, get my energy from the rain. And this year is shaping up a lot like last year.
More than just feeling better when it rains, I was really hoping for a wetter year this year to help replace some of the trees that died in our yard from last summer’s conditions. Despite my efforts in setting up automatic watering systems and taking garbage barrels of water to our parched trees, I simply couldn’t keep up.
This year, my strategy was to get cheap, small trees from Walmart and Home Depot to at least lower the financial risk (we spent about $1k last year and lost every one of the trees we planted in addition to others throughout the yard). This year, our investment is only around $150 and we have about twice as many new trees as last year.
Anyway, here’s some actual data from NOAA that illustrates our wet spring + dry summer:
Current Condition: Abnormally Dry
Year to date: KC at ~100% or better precipitation
Spring Data (April 1 – May31): Already Drying up (~60%)
(I guess the rain stopped earlier than I remembered)
Although there is no data available for the current period, I don’t think we’ve had so much as a shower since May 31.
ps- just to clarify, I don’t live in a dry county – that would be intolerable.
DownHouseSoftware 