Conditions in Georgia are not the worst you’ll find in the southeast, but they look plenty bad – so bad that in this age of cool URL’s, someone down there had the foresight to register GeorgiaDrought.org. From last week’s drought monitor:
In Alabama, 68 percent of the cotton crop, 48 percent of peanuts, and 78 percent of pastures are in poor or very poor condition, as are 60 percent of Florida peanuts and 35 percent of Georgia cotton. The proportion of pastures in poor or very poor condition ranges from almost half to more than three-quarters in six southeastern states (MS, KY, TN, FL, GA, and AL) while four additional adjacent states (WV, IN, SC, and NC) report at least one-quarter of pastures in poor or very poor condition.
NASA just published a telling vegetation map from last month.
I live in the northwest corner of Georgia. Yesterday (June 19) we had 0.54 in of rain. It was the first measurable rain in about two months at our location, although some nearby locations have had some rain earlier. This spring we had a late freeze after some prior very warm weather encouraged early leaf development. Some trees, especially oaks, lost virtually all their leaves. Many crops were destroyed by this early warming and late freeze. Couple the stress of regrowing leaves with the stress of drought and I suspect we will be seeing quite a few trees die in the next year or two.