What do you see in your area?
We are 20 C warmer than usual, with NO rain or snow. It’s amazing. We have trees dying all over the place, pine, fir and spruce trees. Driving down the highway, you notice huge red patches of dying trees. We have been here for 15 years now, so not “long time” residents, but long enough to notice this.
Central Florida here. I have lost several mid-sized oaks and pine trees that I suspect were due to excess heat and year long water/rain shortages. Even with our rainy summer, we are still under our average rainfall.
But our major Fl. cities get flooding from too much rain in short periods.
Even on the BC coast adjacent to an actual wetlands we’ve been losing huge mature broadleaf maples to ongoing drought summers.
We never got the line beetles down here, but now have a beetle getting into the western hemlock.
We have not had measurable snow for nearly two years in our part of Virginia. Rivers were low enough to walk across and people were putting out round bales in August. Two major fires along the Blue Ridge topped 4,000 and 11,000 acres respectively, with several smaller ones burning throughout the state.
It is dry-dry here, and the only thing that really stopped those fires were some random rainy days we had (Quaker Run fire was halted at 4,000 acres with 1/4" of rain thankfully). I’m really hoping for a good snow season that melts slowly to recharge the water table.
I’m in south central Missouri, and we’ve had two very hot and dry summers in a row. We’ve been in a low grade drought most of the year, and hay yields have been about half of normal. We’ve lost a lot of trees from a combination of drought and age. My pastures are in poor shape. They usually have a good stand of fescue/orchard grass, but a lot of that has died and been replaced by weeds and foxtail. This summer I also saw a lot of Bermuda and crabgrass taking over, and I don’t mind that since my horses need a lower NSC forage. A good part of Missouri has been in extreme drought and farmers are struggling to feed their cows. The Humane Society’s Longmeadow Rescue Ranch sent out a request for donations for hay which is hard to find and very expensive.
The warming climate has allowed armadillos to move in, and they dig holes everywhere. I also see roadrunners from time to time. Winters are not as cold as they were 30 years ago. We used to get good snows every year; now we get good snows maybe half the time.
Northern WI/U.P. area here.
The last 2 winters have made it into the top 5 for highest snowfall records. We had SO MUCH snow 
This past spring had above average temps & lower than average rainfall. Summer had below average temps, normal rainfall. Fall had normal temps & above average rainfall.
So far this winter is having above average temps & below average rain/snow.
Paradoxically, the big snows further south are part of a disruption in artic air flow caused by global warming
Southern Mississippi, we were pretty much dry all summer, weeks and weeks without rain. I can say this happened once before like 15 years ago that I remember but the norm I’m used to is pretty regular thunderstorms.
Western New York here. Ten inches below the usual snowfall for November. Lots of rain though. I am really enjoying the moderate temperatures.
Just to add, our province (BC) did also burn again in many spots last summer, major damage and loss in multiple areas. Not in our area last year. But in previous years, we have had plenty of local forest fires (they call them “wildfires” now). We have had three local forest fires since we have lived here, the first one the first year we were here. We were on evacuation “alert” that year, and were completely freaked out. But the farmers in our valley did not evacuate. We all stayed, and kept our irrigation systems running. We learned something that year. Since then, we have been on evacuation ORDER twice more, but again, all the farmers refused to leave, and kept on irrigating. The Conservation or Police Officers just take your name, your next of kin’s name, and your dentist’s name, and anyone over 18 can refuse to evacuate. It’s just drama, in our situation. With a farmer’s pass, you can come and go through the roadblocks.
I was working census 3 years ago here, in mid summer. It was 47C that year one afternoon as I was on my route. A kind fella who had not got his census forms done gave me water, because I had run out, and was too bone headed to quit for the day. A lot of fires started around here that day in our next door town of Ashcroft, where I was working with that census job. Hard to count people when they are evacuated. I watched Ashcroft light up on the way home, people pulled over on the side of the road watching the flames burn the dry forest on the crown of the hillside. Burned from Savona to Ashcroft. Probably from a spark off the railway tracks (again). This is what lit Lytton up too, completely destroyed that town, a few years earlier. You can see the V of where the fire starts, from a spark off the railway. “They” won’t admit it, but it’s pretty obvious if you look.
This is what it is like now. And it’s only just starting. Get ready, if you are not already prepared. Because it’s coming to a location near you soon. Our town will burn soon I think. They have no water in town… water restrictions in place all summer already, dry as a popcorn fart. One side of the valley in town burned in 2017 (Elephant Hill fire), but they lit that up on purpose, thousands of acres was “back burned”, which brought the fire close to town that year needlessly. And they are in the process of logging the town’s watershed, which will further damage their own water supply. Our water supply is quite distant from the town. The same organization would like to log our watershed too. So far, we have managed to avoid this happening. Trees are dying up in our watershed too, and we feel that fire may well rip through there at some point. But fire is “natural” and feller bunchers are “not natural”. We think that our watershed will survive burning, but it won’t survive logging.
This is what is happening here. Don’t stand by and let this sort of thing go on in your area, if you care about your property. Because no one else cares like you do. Good luck. Fires and flooding, and the aftermath of both. Get ready. Insurance has NOT covered everyone who suffered losses. They find that out “after the fact”.
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You may also receive promotional emails from The Chronicle of the Horse. You can opt out at any time.
For Customers
Company
Terms of Use
