Excessive Moisture: Disaster or Perspective?

There’s an old Texas saying — actually, it’s a saying in every state and every state’s residents think they invented it — “If you don’t like the weather, just wait a few minutes, and it will change.” Well, things haven’t really changed in Lamar County; it’s just a matter of perspective.

In the July 2 issue of the Progress, we reported the USDA declaration of an agriculture “disaster” in Lamar County and bordering counties in Texas and Oklahoma. The declaration came as a result of “excessive moisture” conditions beginning last fall.

A couple of weeks after the disaster declaration, one that makes area farm and ranch producers eligible for USDA assistance, Adam Russell of Southwest Farm Press summarized his Texas Crop and Weather report with the headline, “Above- average temperatures worsen dry conditions in Texas.”

So, you ask… “Isn’t that a bit contradictory.” The answer is simple — “Yes, but not really.”

According to John Nielson-Gammon, Texas state climatologist and director of the Texas Center for Climate Studies at Texas A&M University, in spite of recent rains, 2020 is drier than normal as we begin the second half of the year. The lack of moisture, he notes, is exacerbated by above-average temperatures across most of the state.

“We’ve been on the dry side for the whole calendar year,” Nielsen-Gammon said, noting that temperatures statewide are averaging 3 degrees above normal. The eastern half of the state (including Lamar County) is on the low end, averaging just a degree below normal.

“Those temperature differences exaggerate the problem in a drier-than-normal summer,” he said. “Moisture can go away quickly during summer, especially with high temperatures.”

Of course, what appears to be a difference of opinion between the USDA and Nielson-Gammon, is not really a difference at all. As always, it’s in the statistics and how and when one works with them. Unfortunately, it’s more complicated than stating moisture levels are wetter than normal, drier than normal, or normal (“normal” not necessarily equating to “optimum”).

To add to the confusion, here is the most recent Texas A&M AgriLife summary of weather and crop conditions for North Texas:

Topsoil moisture levels were adequate to short. Isolated precipitation was reported, but conditions were hot and dry otherwise. Winter wheat was harvested. Corn, cotton and soybeans were doing well. Summer pastures and hay meadows were producing well. Heat and humidity were stressing livestock. Grasshopper numbers were abundant.

Topsoil moisture levels were adequate to short? Well, if one considers the latest U.S. Drought Monitor, published weekly by the National Weather Service (NWS), “abnormally dry” conditions are present just southwest of Lamar County (in the Greenville area). Lamar County itself drought conditions are rated as “None,” a word that for the layman essentially means, “normal.”

So, are we to believe the USDA, NWS, the state climatologist, all three, or none of the above? All three is likely the best guess.

Consider Roxton’s time-honored tradition of watching a thunderstorm approach from your perspective — a rocker on the front porch of a westward facing home a couple of miles outside of town. Watch you see is something statistical analysis cannot offer.

North Texas weather and “short- term” climate are both hit and miss propositions. A thunderstorm may be hyper-local — you can see the blueish- grey sheet of rain across the way as it stretches from the clouds to the horizon. The boundary between rain and no rain is apparent. One spot on the map might receive 3 inches of rain while a mile away not even a drop is recorded. Weather statistics can’t record these subtle differences because the NWS nor the USDA places data collection stations on every half-acre or acre of the county. As focused as radar has allowed minute-by-minute forecasting to become in recent years, the statistics used in calculating rainfall, temperatures, and barometric pressure are based on one or more stations’ recordings in a county or several counties.

Over the course of a couple of months, local thunderstorms may dump a few inches of rainfall over the same area while much less actually falls a few miles away. The result is a fine line between “Abnormally Dry” and “None” on U.S. Drought Monitor maps. Over the course of time, a month or years (like during the Dust Bowl) “Abnormally Wet” will give way to “None” in the Drought Monitor.

Along the lines of hyper-local weather, keep in mind that an excessive moisture agriculture disaster is seldom the result of a single weather event. The moisture level increases over time until reaching disaster levels. As most federal disaster programs are “reactive,” the disaster is declared after the fact; that is, after the moisture reaches a certain level for a prolonged period and is known to have negatively impacted agriculture producers. There you have it — at least one semi-informed explanation of how an excessive moisture disaster can be declared in the middle of a period of “Abnormally Dry” conditions. By the time you receive this, Wight Street in Roxton may be flooded. If so, just take a walk on College or Pecan Street. You might find grasshoppers kicking up dust.