I went to a class reunion last night and one of my classmates is from Athens Ga. She told me that the town of Athens (home of UGA) would be out of water within a month if they do not get significant rainfall. I knew that much of the SE was in a severe drought as we are over 20 inches below normal here, but I did not know it was this bad.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1075876/athens_board_tightens_water_ban/index.html?source=r_science

A friend of mine came from Georgia about 10 years ago. It was drought at that time, that he told me their neighbors sprayed green paint on their dead grass. The rainfall had always been below average.

Either not enough water or too much water happens over and over in almost all parts of the world. Mother nature seems to always know best in the long run. A while back it was California's turn with pictures on the TV with almost empty reservoirs. - Millet

Rainfall patterns in California is well correlated with El Niño and La Niña events. Even before recorded history, the evidences are written in several hundred years of tree ring core samples. It is like, on the average, we have about 7 years of drought followed by one or two years of above normal rainfall. Relatively speaking, since about 1997, it has been a relatively wet year which doesn't seem to fit the old thousand year pattern. But enough said, the drought is long overdue, counting on statistics alone. And that would be just the beginning of the series of drought, which is actually historically normal for California. Politicians, however, have very short term memory, they forget about the long series of drought years characteristics of California as soon as they get normal year or the reservoir are full. If next year would be drought, sans, global climatic change, then the drought pattern would be discussed again, and there will be arm wrestling and body mangling as California deals with Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, etc, for the flow of Colorado River. If Arnold would still be the governor, we would have an edge, LOL, but by the time people with short term memories come to grips with reality, Arnold's term would have expired.

It's truly amazing how a few hundred miles can make a world of difference.
The above talked about Athens, Georgia...My mother lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. She too is in a severe drought, just like Athens. Here at my house in Charleston, South Carolina my yard is JUST getting to the point of drying out. Last week it was like a bog, right now it is like walking on soft Play-Doh. I do any amount of watering to my potted plants, the run out turns the area into instant mud. I feel very sad for the folks having the drought problem, I REALLY wish I could send them some of my excess water.
Darren

We are in a drought here, but we get our drinking water from an aquifer so drinking water is plentiful. If the shortfall here continues like it is, this will be the 4th year out of the last 8 that we are over 20 inches below normal.

My wife has been in western TN for a while--they too are in extreme drought. My wife says that there are many large trees that are dying from the drought.

My friend in Athens said the shortage there is so bad that when she wants to get hot water out of a faucet, she get a container to collect the cold water for later use.

Both CNN and NBC news had segments on the drought today. For 4 of the states, AL, TN, NC and FL it is the worst drought since they began keeping records. The bad news is that it is likely to continue into next year based on NOAA predictions. Atlanta has 3 months of water remaining with over 3 million people to serve. NC is on the verge of water rationing--statewide. SC is suing NC for taking too much water out of the Cataba River.

Although this might seem kind of odd, i read in a book that you could use a solar device to get potable water from your urine, or other water containing fluids like dirty dish water. It'll save you from needing to get more water from the tap. I read this is a book i bought called "sunshine to dollars" its got all sorts of things you can do with solar energy and i think for you people in the drought area it might be useful to save any water you can in this manner.
just a thought though. if you want the book look for that title online.

The best place to save water is not from recycling your urine, but by fixing leaks in your water system, reporting leaks from city parks and other public places, fixing yours and your neighbor's broken sprinkler emitters, reducing the water used to flush down the toilet, the long showers and the baths.

You can go ahead and use urine for fertilizer while diluting it. There are many models of toilets that are nearly water-less. It takes a whole lot of fossil fuel to make urea or ammonium based nitrogen fertilizers synthetically.

We just caught up half of our deficit in 2 days-- we got about a foot of rain! I hope the other areas that are suffering from drought got some relief.

Yehehey! That's great news Skeet!

Hubby said I was full of hot air.. LOL I been blowing as hard as I could to send rain your way!!
I get very nervous when I no longer see the street in front of my house!!!
Rain poured so hard here it covered from mid curb to mid curb.. I'd rather SE USA get all the rain SE KS has been getting.. evenly distributed probably be enough to cure drought!!!

I truly hope just enough for all of you!!
they are tweaking the "100 yr flood plain" I know my property was NOT on it before.. but it might be on the new one..
I'll be sending every bit of rain I can muster your way..
Hope it makes it there before it dries up!!!

Gina *BabyBlue*

Thanks Gina, I think we've got enough for a while-- it just quit after 3 days of almost non-stop solid rain! We got almost 16 inches over 3 days.
I was worried that my place on the river would flood again, but when I went down there this morning the river wasn't even out of the banks. I guess the ground was so dry it just soaked it up. It would be nice if we got it in smaller installments.

The ones that really need it are up in GA and NC. There they get their drinking water from reserviors and many are just a month or 2 from going dry. A friend of mine from NC said many well are going dry there.