Outside it feels like spring here, but it sure doesn't look like it. By now we would have had at least two major rains; we would have been cut off by the river from getting into town. I'd have taken a photograph of yet another dramatic flood in the lower pasture. The cattle sure wouldn't have to rely on supplemental bales of hay. The anemones would be out.
It looks like the dust bowl. Dust already hangs in the air. It blows in from the south, it blows in from far west Texas. And now "La Niña" is brewing in the Pacific. That means big hurricane season in the Atlantic and no rain in the Plains.
The Houston Chronicle reports:
Forecasters don't know how strong this La Nina will be. However, it typically means more hurricanes in the Atlantic, fewer in the Pacific, less rain and more heat for the already drought-stricken South, and a milder spring and summer in the north... The central plains of the United States tend be drier in the fall during La Ninas, while the Pacific Northwest tends to be wetter in the late fall and early winter.
Of special concern is west Texas which is already in a long-term drought, which during a La Nina will likely get worse...
