The U.S. Drought Monitor’s map of Alabama for Sept. 22, released Sept. 24. Orange is severe drought, tan moderate drought and yellow abnormally dry.(above)
Nearly all of Perry County is in severe drought, the second of the U.S. Drought Monitor’s four drought categories, according to the monitor’s map dated Sept. 22 and released Thursday, Sept. 24.
The monitor placed 98.9 percent of the county in severe drought, up from 77.5 percent a week earlier. On Sept. 8, none of the county was rated worse than moderate drought.
Hale County is at 99.7 percent severe drought. About half of Bibb County and a third of Dallas County are in severe drought, and Marengo County is mostly in moderate drought with a severe pocket.
Statewide, 11 percent of Alabama was in severe drought on Sept. 22, up from 1.5 percent on Sept. 1, and 46 percent was in moderate drought or worse. Only 12 percent of the state was free of dryness.
“Continued heat and generally dry conditions were observed in most of the Southeast,” the week’s author, David Mocko of NASA, wrote in the monitor’s summary, with conditions downgraded from Virginia through the Carolinas to Georgia and Alabama.
The nearest first-order weather station, at Tuscaloosa, had recorded 0.32 inches of rain for September through Saturday, Sept. 26, 2.65 inches below normal for the month to date, with 23 of the 26 days at 90 degrees or hotter, according to the National Weather Service’s preliminary climate report.
The Drought Monitor is produced weekly by the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The next map, dated Sept. 29, is due Thursday, Oct. 1.
