Equine news, winter 2013

              Winter 2013
What if the drought continues for another year(s)?
David W. Freeman
OSU Extension Equine Specialist
The following pictures show the magnitude and progression of drought in the U.S. over the past three years (December
2010 to 2012 from The National Weather Services Climate Prediction Center website).
We love orange at Oklahoma State University; however, in this case,
we just as soon not see so much. The yellow to orange colored regions
show locations of severe to extreme drought. Much of the central re-gion
of the U.S. has expanded into large scale severe to extreme
drought over the past three years.
There is historical precedent of multi-year drought in Oklahoma.
Much has been recorded about the 1930’s ‘dust bowl’ and the disas-trous
consequences centered around the Oklahoma panhandle. A web
-report from the Oklahoma Mesonet reminds us that multi-year epi-sodes
of drought continue to occur: “Drought episodes can last from a
few months to several years. Since modern climatological record-keeping
began in the late nineteenth century, the state has seen five
major multi-year and multi-regional drought events. These occurred in
the late 1890s, from 1909-18, 1930-40, 1952-58 and, to a lesser extent,
1962-72. Each of these episodes contained at least one year of above-normal
rainfall. The drought of the 1930s is associated with the Dust
Bowl of the Great Plains, when socio-economic conditions, agricultural
practices and drought forced the largest emigration of Oklahomans in
state history.” (OKLAHOMA’S CLIMATE: AN OVERVIEW web report from Oklahoma
mesonet ht t p : / / c l imat e .me s one t . o r g / count y _ c l i m a t e / P r oduc t s /
oklahoma_climate_overview.pdf).
The Oklahoma Climatological Survey compiles annual precipitation
records. A graph of rainfall patterns over the past 100 years shows
somewhat of a cyclic pattern to rainfall amounts. The graph, shown on
the next page, documents the pattern of multiple years of above aver-age
rainfall followed by multiple years of below rainfall since the be-ginning
of the 20th century. Looking across the last 30 years, one
might come to the conclusion that we have been ‘overdue’ for a
drought episode for several years. Oklahoman’s have been blessed
with above average rainfall amounts for most years since the early
1980’s, that is until the last couple of years. We’ve become accus-tomed
to receiving these above average amounts to supply our surface
water and fuel our forage production.
(continued)
2010
2011
2012
OSU Equine News is a newsletter prepared quarterly by Dr. David Freeman, OSU Extension Equine Specialist, Department of Animal Science. (Reprint of articles
is allowed for noncommercial uses; please indicate source as OSU Equine News.) Contact: david.freeman@okstate.edu