A reporter I follow on Twitter seemed a bit in awe of these photos from Mississippi River flooding. (Go take a look at them all, I’ll wait…)
When I think of floods, I just remember the 1993 floods. I happened to be spending some time with my aunt that summer just outside of St. Louis, right near the Missouri River. Her place was never in any danger, but it wasn’t pleasant being in that area at the time. I have memories of being in the car and looking out the windows down the side roads to see neighborhoods displaced because of water up to the eaves.
Not too far west, there’s significant drought conditions. Family members in Oklahoma are saying it’s some of the worst they have ever seen. A guy who rents some property from my grandmother was only slightly exaggerating when he said the cracks in the ground are big enough to swallow his cattle. When there’s even a few minutes worth of rain in that area, I can tell because Facebook lights up with videos & pictures from friends back there. It’s actually rather depressing when I see that rain is such huge news that it’s not only worth sharing on social media, but that it should be documented.
Its the worse drought to hit West Texas in forty years.
Kansas as well has been very dry, the winter wheat crop is going to be bad. A friend of my father’s who has a few dozen head of cattle in the NW of the state has had to break out the hay, there isn’t enough grass growing. He may be forced to sell most of his herd if this keeps up.
And Tom Vilsack is delusional and still saying we are going to have a record grain harvest this year and there is nothing to be concerned about.
When we end up back in a great depression, with food rationing, he’s going to be more to blame than Obama.
We have just now finally gotten enough rain to break our present drought just North of you fellows – I pray you received plenty last night as well. I also pray this blessing for us soaked in and didn’t run off into streams heading down to the Mississippi River to add to their troubles there. Blessings to all.
There was an article in the newspapers yesterday that stated that this is “the new normal” as far as weather goes. I hope this isn’t true.
Central & eastern OK has received a lot of rain the last couple of weeks, enough to cause flooding in some places; but out west it’s still been mostly dry. Enough so that a lot of wheat farmers are deciding what fields to abandon because there’s not enough wheat/quality so low that it’s not worth harvesting.
The harvest this year is expected to be just over half of what it was last year.