We're headed the wrong way on the drought monitor. We've already slipped into a worse category than we were 2 weeks ago. Sort of scary after going through what we did last year to realize that at this time last year we only had .26% of the state in the lowest stage of drought.

The effects of last summer are showing up and have been showing up for a couple of months. There are dead pines and other everygreens everywhere around here. Pines have been turning brown over the last couple of months. There are 1000's dead on my hunting club. These are 15-20 year old pines. Leyland cypress's were slammed by the drought.

Our 2 neighbors ponds are still only half full.

It could be another long bad summer.

Still waitin on that winter to hit

I've noticed the Leland Cypress trees too. Several yards with a row planted as a screen have only one or two living. A couple of them in what was a row of 15 isn't much of a screen.

We're all nervous as hell fixing to put a crop in.

I lost 11 of 25(so far) Leyland Cypress and at least 4 of my biggest pines. The cypress are 4 year old/15 feet tall and the pines are 3 feet thru and 120 feet tall. Too many pulp wood size pines to count on about 6 acres. The county agent says hardwoods that are gonna die may not die till next season. Sad dang times.

We've planted a lot of grass and are about to start putting out fertilizer and I'm pretty sure this year will be bad too. If you look at the records, "catastrophic" droughts typically last longer than one year. We've only got 150 years of decent weather records to look at so I don't intend to get all torqued about it, but the limited data don't look good as far as probability is concerned. I haven't looked at the weather patterns or whethere there's a La Nina or an El Nino, but I'm betting on another real dry year.

If I was a row cropper, I'd plant some short season beans about March 1st and set out the rest of the season.

We were wet last summer and then it got dry. Real dry. As y'all said dead pines everywhere but all I'm seeing are 4 yo and younger, not older trees. The ONLY bright side I noticed this morning is there is land I can turkey hunt this year that is usually under water.

Cypress trees here are going down daily. I had sense enough a couple afternoons over the summer to let the hose open on a huge one in my yard for a few minutes, pretty sure that's the only reason it isn't dead.

We will probably get some rain in April then may will be dry. There's never telling what summer holds as afternoon showers dominate then. I ain't no scientist, but it seems like when California is like it is now with weekly heavy rain, they kind of suck up all of the moisture that would usually come our way in the winter and spring. Probably some long explanation behind it that I don't get.

Over 10.5" since Jan 17, for us.

Fur didn't you get any last night?

really ? goober

Yes, twice but no rain to speak of.

I just remembered to check my rain gauge from the rain we had Tuesday and Wednesday today at lunch, it was reading exactly 3"

It's dry over here, no significant rainfall at the farm in a while. I can drive thru fields that I usually have to wait until June to bush hog.

I thought it was bad Montgomery south until I worked in Dekalb county in the fall. Dead hayfields everywhere. The dead Leyland Cypress trees and pines are very noticeable state wide. I was wondering the other day when driving by a commercial piece of property that had the entrance lined with cypress and the majority of them were all dead what do you do as the developer. Cut them all down and start all over I guess.

I don't know that I'd start over planting cypress right now unless I knew I could water them. This situation isn't boding well. We've got grey land worked up ready to plant that normally should have wood ducks swimming on it right now

come on down here to So Montgomery Co, I'll show you wet. One of our leases is a black belt creek bottom and it's close to as wet as I've ever seen it. I'm doing some bush hogging and fri. I managed to stick my truck, my golf cart and my tractor.
I managed to get them all out, but it's a pain in the arse. I have to think about where I'm going and which vehicle and what route I'm going to take. Turkey season should be an adventure

As like last year the heaviest rain has hugged south of Bham. My dad says they've had over 11" of rain in Selma since Jan 1. I've only gotten 7.3" up here at the farm gate same period. 4.5" of that fell second week of Jan so that tells how dry we are up here. Every 60% chance or above lately we get less than .25"

we have 7 dead cypress trees and one that fell over the other day, all of them were fine last spring, I sure hope we get good rain this spring.

My brother told me today that he had seen a report with someone saying that the La Nina was weakening and setting up for an El Nino. I have not heard that yet but that would be great for us if it does happen.