Monday, February 23, 2009

Drought Watch: DC Deficits Not DeCreasing

The federal budget is not the only thing showing large deficits in the Nation's Capital recently. Although the latest model runs have decreased the chances of breaking the February minimum precipitation record for Washington, the region from central Maryland southward through Virginia is running abnormally dry (D0 on the 5-level drought scale) in the longer term.

Especially compared to 2007, 2008 was quite wet (18% above average overall), but that was almost completely accounted for by a near-record May. Except for September, the entire second half of the year was dry, and last month was also slightly in deficit. Last year also showed wide variation in precipitation amounts; 8 months were at least 50% above or below average, including February, which was nearly the opposite of this month.

Image (click to enlarge): CapitalClimate chart from NWS data

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

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Keep up the great work!

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