What is a drought? When it rains, does that mean the drought is over?
In: 32
To add a basic yardstick to determine whether it’s a drought or not (for most areas) would be a combination of assessing currently dam/reservoir levels and rain/snow forecast in the catchment area.
Basically when you can see – given normal water consumption levels combined with evaporation loss and not enough water coming in – that the dam is going to run empty then you’re headed into drought territory.
Each area is different though and some areas can make significant changes – most notably in agricultural sections – to reduce water usage to avoid drought.
Drought is a temporary phenomenon, once you go year on year on year with only low levels of rain it’s no longer a drought and you’ve got to update your climate categorization and plan according – especially in the farming sector.
A drought isn’t necessarily over when it starts raining – it’s important that your forecast and calculations show that your dams are going to start filling up and won’t run down to low levels again between now and when the next rainy season starts.
This can be tricky – especially in many areas that depend on snow melt to supply water for much of the year. So it’s easy to have a situation where you’ve gotten rain but little to no snow in the catchment area – so temporarily you’re fine for water but you’ll be dry again in a couple of months.
Latest Answers