Drought

“We are in a hot dry period,” said Kent Hixson, Mulvane City Manager.  “We are a growing community.” That combination has led to friction between the cities of Mulvane and Augusta over water use.  Back in the 90's the two cities signed a contract saying Augusta would sell Mulvane up to 200 million gallons of water a year.  Neither expected what's happened since. Now people in Augusta are frustrated that Mulvane's using more water while Augusta has to conserve. “Believe me, there's nobody out there that's more frustrated than I am,” said Bill Keefer, Augusta City Manager.

It's maybe the only bright side of the brutal drought.  The Kansas weather been so dry this summer that mosquitoes have nowhere to breed.  Their eggs must hatch in standing water where the larvae develop into the flying bugs most of us hate.  The lack of mosquitoes is demonstrated by the fact that Park City's mosquito control truck has been out fogging just once this summer.  That's saving the city thousands of dollars. Meantime, the Eagle Valley Raptor Center's Ken Lockwood says lower mosquito numbers mean a lower risk for some diseases like West Nile virus.

You wouldn't know we're in the middle of a drought by looking at Ken Tector's lawn. "It's pretty good for the heat,” Tector said. He's trying to keep his grass green, considering what happened during last year's dry period. "This is rebel fescue.  We replanted it last fall because everything was dead,” Tector said. And he doesn't want a repeat.  Neither do the countless callers trying to squeeze every last drop of information from Sedgwick County Extension horticulture agent, Rebecca McMahon.

The dry and hot summer weather pattern continues across the central plains with sunny skies and temperatures expected near 100 for most of Kansas over the weekend.  Wind speeds today should remain less than 20 m.p.h.  The light winds and high relative humidity in the eastern half of Kansas will only make it feel hotter with heat index values between 100-105 during the late afternoon. Skies will remain mostly clear overnight with temperatures dipping into the comfortable range (upper 60s to low 70s)

After a couple of weeks of hot, dry weather, it was the sight some parts of Kansas have been looking for. This week Dodge City received more than two inches of much needed rain. The rainfall was even heavier to the north, with Haskell getting as much as five inches, and Garden City four inches. Experts say, while the rain will help with drought conditions, it will not break the drought. "That hasn't broke the drought certainly," said National Weather Service meteorologist Larry Ruthi.

Kansas Farmers claim nearly $1 billion in insurance to offset crop losses due to drought.  The $987 million in claims breaks the old record of $447 million set in 2002. Last year, the state struggled with a lack of rainfall and a record number of triple-digit temperatures.  The USDA expects more claims as drought conditions worsen.  The U.S. Drought monitor continues to list most areas south of I-70 with some sort of drought condition.

The latest numbers put the loss from drought in Kansas at nearly 2 billion dollars with 85 percent of the state in some sort of drought. And as bad as it is, researchers say they have new evidence of long-ago droughts-in one case, a drought lasting five decades. The new information comes from the study of tree rings. You can read about it here from the Los Angles Times.

It's the kind of rain we've been hoping for. But two soggy days didn't change how dry Wellington City Lake is looking. "It certainly didn't. We're still in the phase that we need to watch it and we need to monitor it very closely," explains Gus Collins, Wellington City Manager. The lake hit a record last month, and not a good one. At one point it was more than six feet below where it should be. This week's rain only boosted it up three inches. "Is it enough? Certainly we don't think so. So we're still hoping for the best.

No problems for 35 years and suddenly Harry Neel's house starts to crack. "The reason we kind of discovered it, the back door wouldn't shut real easy and we realized we were having problems with shifting," Neel says. The shifting of the foundation quickly caused cracks in the ceiling and walls of the basement.  Wayne Briggs of Briggs Basement and Foundation Repair says the damage is due to the forces of nature--namely the recent drought. "This is one of our busiest years ever," Briggs says.  "Drought, dryness in the ground, the ground shrinks and settles causing the house to go down.

Western Kansas was once again hit with a dry summer…one where extreme heat kept the rain away. Water wells in towns like Otis are said to be very low because of the lack of rain. Officials are now asking anybody that lives in the drought affected area to do their best to conserve water. In the town of Beaver, a small restaurant known as “Mo's” is doing all they can to help the conservation process. "We have to be careful to conserve as much water as possible," says owner Leonard Moeder.