California Drought

It Is So Dry In California That The Drinking Water Is Literally Starting To Taste Like Dirt

What would you do if the water coming out of your faucets tasted like dirt?  I know how crazy that sounds, but this is actually happening in the capital city of California right now.  Conditions are incredibly dry because of the endless megadrought in the region, and water levels have dropped to very low levels.  As a result, there is a much higher concentration of something called “geosmin” in the water than usual.  For those that are not familiar with “geosmin”, it is one of the organic compounds that makes soil smell the way that it does.  So at this moment, millions of California residents have water coming out of their taps that smells and tastes like dirt. (Read More...)

California Has Never Experienced A Water Crisis Of This Magnitude – And The Worst Is Yet To Come

U.S. Drought Monitor June 9Things have never been this dry for this long in the recorded history of the state of California, and this has created an unprecedented water crisis.  At this point, 1,900 wells have already gone completely dry in California, and some communities are not receiving any more water at all.  As you read this article, 100 percent of the state is in some stage of drought, and there has been so little precipitation this year that some young children have never actually seen rain.  This is already the worst multi-year drought in the history of the state of California, but this may only be just the beginning.  Scientists tell us that the amount of rain that California received during the 20th century was highly unusual.  In fact, they tell us that it was the wettest century for the state in at least 1000 years.  Now that things are returning to “normal”, the state is completely and total unprepared for it.  California has never experienced a water crisis of this magnitude, and other states in the western half of the nation are starting to really suffer as well.  In the end, we could very well be headed for the worst water crisis this country has ever seen. (Read More...)

Due To Extreme Drought, The Number Of Cattle In The U.S. Is The Smallest It Has Been Since 1951

Drought Monitor January 28 2014The last time the number of cattle in the United States was this low was 63 years ago.  But back in 1951, there were only about 154 million people living in the United States.  Now, there are more than 313 million people living in this nation.  The size of the U.S. cattle herd has been shrinking for seven years in a row, and we are rapidly heading toward a beef shortage unlike anything that this country has ever experienced before.  Of course the primary reason for this is the extreme drought which has been plaguing the western half of the country.  As I noted recently, 2013 was the driest year that the state of California has ever experienced, and due to the lack of water ranchers across the western half of the nation have been selling off their cattle to be slaughtered.  If you check out the U.S. Drought Monitor, you can see that almost the entire state of California is officially experiencing “D3 Extreme Drought” right now.  If this drought does not end, we will eventually be facing a food crisis in the United States that is greater than any of us have ever seen in our entire lifetimes. (Read More...)

The Worst Drought In The History Of California Is Happening Right Now

California DroughtDid you know that 2013 was the driest year ever recorded in the state of California?  And did you know that so far this is the driest January that the state of California has ever experienced?  The worst drought in the history of California is happening right now.  Just check out the current conditions on the U.S. Drought Monitor.  About two-thirds of the state is experiencing “extreme drought” at the moment, and Governor Jerry Brown says that it is “not likely to rain for several weeks“.  Unfortunately for California, the truth is that the weather in the western half of the country is simply returning to historical norms.  Scientists tell us that the 20th century was the wettest century in the western half of the United States in 1000 years, and that extremely dry conditions are normally what we should expect for most areas from the Pacific Ocean to the Mississippi River.  If long-term conditions truly are “returning to normal”, then the state of California could be heading for a water crisis of unprecedented magnitude. (Read More...)