The United States has been experiencing abnormally low rainfall amounts this spring and summer. Almost 1/3 of the continental United States is experiencing some level of drought. This is expected to spread to other parts of the country.

USA Today writes

Coast to coast, the drought’s effects are as varied as the landscapes:

•In central California, ranchers are selling cattle or trucking them out of state as grazing grass dries up. In Southern California’s Antelope Valley, rainfall at just 15% of normal erased the spring bloom of California poppies.

•In South Florida, Lake Okeechobee, America’s second-largest body of fresh water, fell last week to a record low — an average 8.89feet above sea level. So much lake bed is dry that 12,000 acres of it caught fire last month. Saltwater intrusion threatens to contaminate municipal wells for Atlantic coastal towns as fresh groundwater levels drop.

•In Alabama, shallow ponds on commercial catfish farms are dwindling, and more than half the corn and wheat crops are in poor condition.

“It seems extremely likely that drought will become more the norm” for the West, says Kathy Jacobs of the Arizona Water Institute. “Droughts will continue to come and go, but … higher temperatures are going to produce more water stress.”

Unless aggressive action is taken soon, stress on the water supply will only increase as the water quantity decreases.

via usa today

image via bbc