Crops Faltering In Michigan: Drought "As Bad As We've Seen In 25 Years"

[hatrack]

TRAVERSE CITY — Dean Edgecomb's 62nd birthday afforded him no time for cake and ice cream. He was too busy hooking up an irrigation system to save acres of parched, wilting corn in a field just north of Hammond Road.

Edgecomb's nearly 40 acres of sweet corn and silage turned from green to brown in about a week, he said. So he, his wife Vicki, and a friend toiled Friday under a hot sun to link watering equipment and save what's left of his withering crop.

"I can't believe it went so fast,” Edgecomb said. "As soon as we get everything covered, we'll have to start all over again.” Stressed field crops, undersized fruit in local orchards and toasted lawns are testaments to another bone-dry summer in the Grand Traverse region

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Rainfall totals were about 4 inches below normal from April through July, with only 6.38 inches recorded, said meteorologist Scott Rozanski of the National Weather Service office in Gaylord. A scant 1.67 inches fell in July, most it during the week of the National Cherry Festival, compared to a long-range average of nearly 2.8 inches. Rozanski said the area's moisture problems started in late spring, when only 1.35 inches of rain fell in May, about half the average for that month.

EDIT

http://www.record-eagle.com/2007/aug/05drought.htm

[Sadie4629]

1. It's bad here

I'm just down the coast from TC. They keep forcasting rain, and it gets all dark, and then--nothing happens. I hope it rains soon.

[marmar]

2. We finally got a little rain in the north Detroit metro area today....

But it's been a hot and dry August. The usually verdant summer lawns of southeast Michigan are tawny and sickly looking.

[phantom power]

3. "I can't believe it went so fast,”

We have built our castle on sand.