Monday afternoon, I was sitting in a meeting of federal drought scientists up in Santa Fe when Nora pinged me this text message:

Yes, it is raining really hard here.

It was something of an understatement. When I got up Tuesday morning and checked my rain gauge, it had recorded 1.93 inches in the previous 24 hours – the highest single-day total in the “period of record” here on Aliso Drive (and by “period of record,” I mean “since Spet. 1, 1999, when I put up the rain gauge.”

That’s about as perfect a setup as you can get for a story about a drought meeting, because it embodies the uncertainties in our definitions of drought, and how therefore we ought to go about measuring and talking about it. My story:

So is the drought over?

That was probably the most-asked question in New Mexico last week, as long-awaited rains hit the state with so much force that floodwaters damaged neighborhoods from Rio Rancho and Belen to Silver City and Sunland Park.

If your living room was flooded with muddy water, the answer to the drought question must have looked pretty obvious: what drought?

But to 50 of the nation’s top drought scientists meeting at a Santa Fe hotel last week, the answer appeared as blurred as the view out the rain-streaked hotel windows.

The answer really depends on what you mean by “drought,” said Kelly Redmond, a Nevada climatologist and leading expert on western drought.

The folks running the Climate Working Group summer retreat on drought were kind enough to invite me up to Santa Fe this week. I spent most of the time listening, but they also extended the huge kindness of inviting me to speak. I think they hoped I could explain the rituals of my somewhat mystifying media tribe, rituals that I know leave many scientists puzzled.

I don’t know if I was much help. My central point is that we can’t do what many scientists expect of us: make the public understand the science.
Continue reading ‘Word of the Day: Pluvial’ »

I’ve been much of the week up in Santa Fe at a workshop of drought scientists, and while we’ve been busy palavering, things have been changing on the ground here in the drought-stricken southwest. The greatest excitement was in Coronado National Memorial Park, near Bisbee in far southern Arizona, which got 12 inches of rain Sunday and Monday, and had to close. A National Park in the desert, closed because of rain.

Where the people live:

In Tucson, 3.83 inches of rain fell July 27-31, with 4-8 inches falling in the surrounding mountains (Mt. Lemmon had 7.71 inches)…. In New Mexico, a very active July monsoon continued, dumping another 1-3 inches of rain on most of the State. Although a number of water restrictions remained in place (with some precautionary), fire restrictions are basically gone except in Roosevelt County as topsoil moisture has greatly rebounded. Accordingly, a one-category improvement was made for much of New Mexico, except in the southeast. If August continues wet, New Mexico would enter autumn with only long-term (6+ years) drought lingering in the mountains.

This raises a number of interesting questions related to the value of summer monsoon rainfall versus winter snowpack in affecting drought conditions here. All precip is not the same.

Zippy’s concerned about global warming:

I’m concerned about global warming, but I’m even more concerned about Al Gore’s love affair with his Powerpoint program. On the one hand, I don’t want to be underwater in 30 years, but on the other, can Al Gore sweep into the oval office on a wave of animated carbon emission charts?

I think I’ll go home and isulate my roof, buy a Prius and prepare for another disputed national election.

(Note: the link above goes to the daily Zippy strip, so if you’re clicking after Aug. 2, you’ll get something else. But click anyway. Zippy always rewards.)

Andrew Dessler, one of my favorite climate science/politics/policy ‘splainers, has started a blog.