By Clint Thompson
If history is an indicator, this spring’s drought could lead to warmer and drier conditions this summer.
James Spann, chief meteorologist at the Alabama Weather Network, discussed the unusually dry conditions that encompassed the Southeast for approximately nine months in an interview with AgNet Media. He said the last time dry conditions were this bad during the spring was nearly 20 years ago.
“We had a spring drought like this, and I want to say it was 2007. The numbers were almost identical to this; 19 years ago, we had one just like it. That following summer was nasty. It was excessively hot and excessively dry,” Spann said. “You don’t want to go into a summer with a drought.
“A lot of people don’t really understand the correlation between soil moisture and air temperature. It’s tough to get triple digit heat in Georgia, Alabama and the southeastern states with deep, rich soil moisture. So much of the sun’s energy has to work on evaporating the soil moisture instead of heating the ground which in turn heats the air.
“Come July and August, if you’ve got good, rich soil moisture, it kind of keeps the lid on temperatures to some degree. But on the other hand, if there’s none, you can have these nasty triple digit heat days. That’s one thing we don’t want to have going into this summer is a drought.”
The May 14 release of the U.S. Drought Monitor showed exceptional drought and extreme drought conditions still prevalent across areas in the Southeast. Those dry areas still persist despite recent rains.
“We’re not where we need to be right now. I just don’t think there’s any way we can knock that out in 15 days going into June,” Spann said.