Hello September, So Long Summer!!

A cow looks for blades of green grass in the bottom of an empty stock tank

at a ranch near Manor on July 27, 2011 - photograph by Jay Janner

I have NEVER been happier to see summer coming to an end. This year it has been one for the record books all across Texas.

• In Austin, we usually average 12 days above 100 degrees for the entire summer. We had 13 such days before summer even officially started this year.
• We broke the record from 1925 for the number of days above 100 - previous record was 69, as I type this we are at 78 and counting. (Forecast for at least 4 more days).
• We tied the record for hottest day ever - 112, the next day it was 110.
• New record for the number of consecutive 100 degree days - 27.
• It's not just Austin, for 4/5 of Texas this is the worst drought on record.
• 15 inches of rain in the last 12 months.

Driving around town, it looks like winter. Except for watered lawns and landscapes, everything else is brown. I don't know how farmers and ranchers across the state are getting by. This past weekend our local paper, The Austin American Statesman had a few astonishing pictures of the devastation. According to the article by Brenda Bell, "The meanest drought in modern Texas history looks different out here, away from the cities." While we worry about water restrictions, the livelihood of rural Texans is threatened. Livestock and agricultural losses are estimated at $5.2 billion and rising.
 
The first picture above as well as the one below were both were taken within a few miles of where I live by staff photographer Jay Janner.

This corn stalk is typical of the condition of hundreds of acres of corn that was destroyed by drought in Round Rock - photo taken by Jay Janner on July 12, 2011

You can find these and others equally devastating taken this July here: Dry Season: The Drought of 2011. Needless to say, we are praying for rain.