Wait, Wasn't This Desert Once a Lake?

The picture to the left is me waking about 50 yards into what use to be Jordan Lake. The picture below and to the right is a picture I took while in the middle of Lake Michie. As you can tell this drought is still here. I've mentioned in the past I am not use to droughts, I've always had to deal with flooding. The worst drought was when the Ohio River I believe was 10 feet below normal, nothing two serious.So this is strange for me to have water restrictions and having to constantly do stories about the drought. I even did a "How is the drought effecting the State Fair" story.

Today was no different, except the governor is freaking out urging water conservation and the city of Durham is not allowing people to water there lawns. If they continue to allow people to water their lawns on Saturdays, they will run out of water around Christmas.

Part of our problem is the extreme heat we've been having. We set a record average temperature for the month of August and we still had 90 degree days in October. The heat has made things bad, but it makes it worse because we have not had any rain.

It's scary how little rain we have had. It's not like we have had rain fore casted, it just doesn't make it here. We've Had two hurricanes turn at the last minute and miss us. The rain that hit the Midwest just vaporized and we got none of it. It's like God is taunting us "Look NC, I'm flooding Ohio and you can't have any." We need rain and lots of it, according to our weather guy we probably need a foot of rain to get back to normal. An average rain we might get and inch made two, so we literally need a hurricane to get back to normal. So a thing that may destroy houses and can kill is what is needed to get us near normal for water. Wow, what a crappy catch 22.

Going Though a Drought

Almost all my life I have lived in an area where I have never had to deal with drought. While in Bowling Green and Toledo, Lake Erie is right there. As a kid I grew up along the Ohio river. Every year there was more concern over flooding than drought. The worst I could ever drought conditions was during two months where there was no rain, but it wasn't that bad, all the local farmers had OK years.



For the entire month of August North Carolina has had only one day below 90. and we have actually had at least ten days over 100. Then we also set a record for average temperature in a month. August beat the old record by two degrees (old record 82.5 and the new record is 84.5). To compound matters we have had very little rain in that same time. Of hand I think Fried Chicken Drive has had two rain storms and only one lasted more than 10 minutes. This has led to the state calling for stage 1 drought measures. Mostly this means you can only water you lawn one day a week, but if you get caught watering on any other day you will receive a $200 fine for the first offense and you will have you water shut off for a second. Also the Governor is asking people to cut back on their water usage by 20%.

Most people here are use to droughts, North Carolina has one every year, but this time every one is a little worried. With no real rain in sight it's a little scary. I hope we get a some rain soon, I'm afraid to see what stage 2 of a drought is.