Drought Threat Feared Spreading : Midwest, South Could Join West in Crop Failure, Fire Peril

Drought, already disrupting life in California and the Pacific Northwest, may be taking hold across widespread areas of the United States and southern Canada, raising the possibility of crop failures, forest fires and water rationing.

Although it will take at least until midsummer to determine the severity of this year’s drought and its impact on the economy, agriculture officials and weather experts are worried about dry conditions in the Southeast, the Midwest and the Great Plains.

“The weather has been more uncertain than usual,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Richard E. Lyng said Wednesday, “. . . serious weather problems could have the effect of creating some shortages.”

Traders Bid Up Prices

Over the last several weeks, commodity traders have steadily bid up the prices of soybeans, wheat, corn and livestock as a hedge against drought-shortened supplies and even higher prices later in the year.

“We are concerned and we are monitoring (conditions) very carefully,” said Norton Strommen, an Agriculture Department meteorologist.

A forecast for above-average temperatures and below-normal rainfall over a large portion of the grain belt this month “doesn’t bode well,” said Wayne Wendland, an Illinois Water Survey climatologist.

“This is very widespread, more widespread than in recent years,” said Donald Wilhite, an agriculture and drought researcher at the University of Nebraska’s Center for Agriculture, Meteorology and Climatology. “Parts of at least 19 states are affected--many of them major agricultural regions.”

The most severe problems now are in the Pacific Northwest, where the drought along the Columbia River Basin is being called the worst in 60 years. Two winters of below-normal mountain snowfall reduced water flowing into the basin this spring. Reservoirs are low. Some ranchers have had to truck in water for their livestock and farmers may find they cannot irrigate orchards this year.

Orchards of Washington

The impact stretches from the apple orchards and vineyards around Yakima, Wash., to the rangeland in California’a San Joaquin Valley.

“We have the potential (in the Pacific Northwest) for the fourth severe fire season in a row,” said Arnold Hartigan, a spokesman for the government’s Inter-Agency Fire Center. “That’s unprecedented.”

In the Northern Great Plains and throughout southern Canada’s wheat belt, rainfall since March 20 has been more than 50% below normal, according to the U.S. Weather Service’s Climate Analysis Center. Sugar beet farmers in parts of Minnesota, Montana and the Dakotas were forced to replant their 1988 crop in dusty fields after losing their first crop to prolonged dry conditions.

Across the border, Canadian cattle farmers say they are already being hurt by the worst drought since the 1930s and wheat farmers have asked the government for special drought aid.

In western Montana, water levels at the Hungry Horse Dam reservoir are up to 70 feet below what they should be this time of year.

Rains Recharge the Soil

“We have very little soil moisture,” said Greg Spoden, a Minnesota state climatologist. “Soil moisture is agriculture’s reserve, like a bank account. Fall and spring rains recharge the s1869179948those two periods most of Minnesota received below-normal precipitation. We haven’t made enough deposits and we are going to be making our withdrawals very shortly.”

For every inch of rain that has fallen on Illinois’ rich corn and soybean fields this spring, two inches have evaporated, climatologist Wendland reported. This happened, he said, because relative humidity remained low while temperatures were abnormally high during the day and abnormally low at night. At one monitoring station between Peoria and Springfield, site of some of the country’s most productive soil, instruments last month recorded a loss of 4.5 times more moisture through evaporation than fell as rain.

“Streams are extremely low for this time of the year,” reported Illinois hydrologist Mike Terstriep. “Reservoirs are beginning to drop rapidly. Normally we don’t see that until July. We are running in a midsummer condition now.”

Similar conditions exist along the length of the Mississippi Valley. Since April 3, an area stretching from southern Minnesota and Wisconsin down to Louisiana has had only half the rain it normally gets each spring.

Other affected areas include portions of Missouri, Indiana, and Arkansas, reported David Miskus, a researcher at the Weather Service’s Climate Analysis Center.

Liquidating Steers

In western and southern Texas, some cattle ranchers are liquidating malnourished steers at bargain basement prices. Rainfall in much of Texas has ranged from 8 inches to 20 inches below normal since last September, Miskus said.

The Southeast, meanwhile, is experiencing its third consecutive dry year, and in Georgia, dry conditions have lasted five years, according to Gayther Plummer, a University of Georgia climatologist. The most severe problems are in the northern part of the state, where farmers are finding there is not enough soil moisture to germinate their soybean crops.

Miskus said that rainfall has averaged only half of normal in other areas of the Southeast, including portions of Alabama, eastern Tennessee, northern Mississippi and the western Carolinas.

Even if drought conditions persist, some crops are likely to survive. Corn, for example, can send roots two or more feet into the soil to tap water supplies. However, if the weather remains dry into early July, that could threaten the Midwestern corn crop and wreak economic havoc in the farm economy now recovering from more than five years of depression.

“Most of the natural disasters that affect us are visible,” said Nebraska agricultural climatologist Donald Wilhite. “You can instantly see the damage from hurricanes, earthquakes and tornadoes. But drought is one of those things that creeps up on you, and you are never quite sure when you’re in one or how severe it is.”

Researcher Ruth Lopez in Chicago contributed to this story.