Crop Drought Disaster Continues to Spread in U.S. South, Midwest

UPDATED

Drought destroys more crops in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has declared additional counties across Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas as crop disaster areas due to damages and losses caused by the ongoing drought.

The drought disaster designations are for the following areas:

• Kansas.Barber, Butler, Chautauqua,Cowley, Elk, Harper, Kingman, Pratt, Reno, Sedgwick and Sumner counties.
• Oklahoma. Kay and Osage counties.
• Texas. 23 counties including  Brown, Callahan, McCulloch, Menard, Mills and Taylor counties.
  Also: Coleman, Comanche, Concho, Eastland, Fisher, Hamilton, Jone, Kimble, Lampasas, Mason, Nolan, Runnels, San Saba, Schleicher, Shackelford, Sutton and Tom Green counties.

Crop Disasters 2015

Beginning January 7, 2015 USDA has declared crop disasters in at least an 1,061 counties across 20  states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia.

Majority of the 2015 crop disaster designations so far are due to drought.

Crop Disasters 2014

In 2014, USDA declared crop disasters in at least 2,904 counties across 44 states. Most of the designations were due to drought.

Those states were:

Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan. Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. [FIRE-EARTH has documented all of the above listings. See blog content.]

Notes:
i. USDA trigger point for a countywide disaster declaration is 30 percent crop loss on at least one crop.

ii. The counties designated as agricultural disaster areas, as listed above, include both primary and contiguous disaster areas.

iii. Some counties may have been designated as crop disaster areas more than once due to multiple disasters.

iv. The U.S. has a total of 3,143 counties and county-equivalents.

v. The disaster designations posted above were approved by USDA on April 15, 2015 and posted on USDA website on April 11, 2015 in a  separate declarations.

California Drought Update (U.S. Drought Monitor)

Week	None	D0-D4	D1-D4	D2-D4	D3-D4	D4
2015-04-14	0.14	99.86	98.11	93.44	66.6	44.32
2015-04-07	0.15	99.85	98.11	93.44	66.6	44.32

Drought Severity
D0 – Abnormally Dry || D1 – Moderate Drought || D2 – Severe Drought|| D3 – Extreme Drought || D4 – Exceptional Drought

Related Links

• Drought Crop Disaster Declared in Texas April 12, 2015
• Drought Destroys Crops in CA, OR, ID, UT, AZ and NV April 9, 2015
• Federal Disasters
• Drought
• Agricultural Disasters Index

“Apocalyptic” Haboob Sweeps through Belarus

Haboob strikes Ukraine/Belarus border turning daylight into night in Soligorsk, Belarus 

A haboob laced with high winds and torrential rains swept through portions of Belarus, including the capital, Minsk, cutting-off electricity, felling trees and damaging buildings this week, the local media reported.

A haboob (Arabic:”blast/ draft”) is an intense dust storm propelled by an atmospheric gravity current.

The following video from YouTube was available only in the original language.