During a drought, where does the water evaporated from lakes and rivers go? If it just went into the atmosphere you’d expect that to then quickly get saturated and start raining.

Question

During a drought, where does the water evaporated from lakes and rivers go? If it just went into the atmosphere you’d expect that to then quickly get saturated and start raining.

In: Earth Science

Answer 1

It goes into the atmosphere, your expectation is just wrong. I grew up in a hot dry area with frequent droughts and never had this expectation. Hot dry air can hold a lot of water before saturating. You’re also might be overestimating how much water there is in drought prone areas. The area where I grew up is just brown during the summer, drought or not.