A few weeks back Steve Bloom asked in the comments about drought in the United States in the 1950s. This is the big drought we talk about in New Mexico – more significant here than the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. I ran across these maps today:
jfleck at inkstain
A few thoughts from John Fleck, a writer of journalism and other things, living in New Mexico
Thanks for those, John. I notice that NM seems to be in the thick of it for these two periods. Is the current drought pattern similar?
Steve – Coincidentally, I was looking at some of these numbers for the current drought last night. The current situation looks a lot less severe by comparison. From 1943-1957, NM statewide only had *one* year (1949) with above-average precip. That’s obviously a cherry-picked start and end point, but it gives some idea of worst case. Recently we’ve had much more of a mix of wet and dry years. I’ll try to pull something together and post a side-by-side.
making cherry pie…