Last month, in a conversation with a friend regarding the impacts of this year's drought on our sheep operation, he said, "we're saying 'dry year' rather than drought." At the time, I was taken aback - I'd just recorded an episode of our Sheep Stuff Ewe Should Know podcast, where my podcasting partner, Ryan Mahoney, talked about having to sell cattle due to severe drought conditions in the Montezuma Hills southwest of Sacramento. Later that same week, I was startled to see that the U.S. Drought Monitor still considered my part of California in "D2" (mid-range in the Drought Monitor's classification system) - despite the fact that our annual precipitation was among the lowest on record. Both of these experiences reinforced something I'd learned during the last drought: conditions on the ground have very little to do with the political definition of drought.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that the politics of drought have little to do with the real world. An official drought declaration brings with it a variety of regulatory and legal ramifications, very few of which have anything to do with the lack of forage on our annual rangelands or the lack of water in our stock ponds and seasonal creeks. A drought declaration has political ramifications for elected officials. But Mother Nature doesn't "declare" a drought - she just simply fails to deliver adequate moisture. And you generally don’t know it’s a drought until you’re in the midst of it.
As I’ve said before, drought is more - much more - than simply a lack of rainfall. Thinking about drought through the lens of my economic training, I see it as an imbalance between supply and demand - an imbalance which the marketplace cannot correct. On the supply side of the equation, obviously, we have precipitation. Looking at my rain gauge records for this past year - and at the forecast for the coming weeks - we’ll end the 2020-21 water year (which began in October) with less than 20 inches of rain here in Auburn. “Normal” (whatever that means) for us is more than 32 inches - meaning we have a 40% deficit. On the demand side, a shorter-than-usual winter dormant period, along with north winds and a warm and dry start to May, have increased evapotranspiration (the water lost to evaporation and transpiration by plants). Consequently, our rangeland pastures have virtually no soil moisture. And fuel moisture levels (one indicator of fire danger) are abnormally low. In other words, we’re in a drought - a more severe drought than 2013-2014. This is the driest single year I’ve ever experienced as an adult. Old-timers tell me it compares (depressingly) to 1976-77.
You’re probably asking, what’s the difference between a dry year and a drought? That’s a fair question. For me, a dry year is anomaly; a drought is a pattern. Last year, we received below-normal precipitation. We also had a late germinating rain, which meant we didn’t green up as early as we usually do in the fall. But my evolving understanding of rangeland drought suggests that soil moisture deficits can linger from one year to the next. I think that’s part of what we’re seeing now - even above the snow-line in the Sierra Nevada. By all accounts, our higher elevation rivers have already reached peak flow - another sign that snowmelt is soaking in rather than running off.
I don’t envy the scientists who have to put together the weekly drought map for the U.S. Drought Monitor - especially when it comes to our Mediterranean climate. Even with our less-than-average rainfall here, our grass was green in March and April. That said, our grass matured earlier than usual. Our seasonal creeks NEVER ran through the winter and spring. These conditions alone were far more severe than 2014 and 2014 - when the Drought Monitor put our region in D4 (the most severe drought category). I’m not sure why we’re not in D4 at this point.
Fortunately, we took steps last summer - knowing that we might be short of feed last fall. We pared down our flock. We sharpened our pencils and figured out the most cost-effective way to get our sheep to utilize the dry forage we’d saved. We carefully planned our winter grazing to be sure we had enough forage once we started lambing. We were conservative with a lower-case “C” - we only kept the sheep we knew our pastures and rangeland would support, even if our worst fears were realized.
But we're glad we didn't wait for the politicians to tell us we were in a drought.
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