Flash Droughts and Other Dry Weather

Robin talks with Jason Otkin from UW-Madison's Space Science adn Engineering Center about the curret dry weather in Wisconsin and flash droughts.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Good morning. I'm Robin Colbert andthis is Madison Forum. I guess this
morning is Jason Otkin. He isa research scientist at the Space Center,
an engineering center at UW Madison.Jason, I hope I got your last
name rights at Otkin. Yep,it is all right. Well, thanks
so much for joining me. NowI'm speaking with Jason here on Thursday,

(00:21):
so a couple of days before ourprogram airs on Sunday morning, and our
topic this morning is going to bedrought. While between now Thursday and Sunday
morning, we're hoping that we're goingto be seeing some more rain here so
this can improve our picture. Keepyour fingers crossed as far as our drought
scene here in Wisconsin. But Jason, now, I'm sure you've had a

(00:43):
chance to take a look at thelatest US Drought Monitor map that was released
this Thursday morning, and we've receivedrain on and off, notably again yesterday,
but much of Dane County still we'rein extreme drought. Yes, that's
correct. The extreme drought that we'reexperiencing in Costine County is a really manifestation

(01:04):
of the of the incredibly dry weatherthat we had in May and June.
In the very first part of July. You know, some locations hardly gotten
any rain at all, and that'sduring our wettest time of the year.
So like even during the last month, it seems like it's been wet,
but in reality it's actually about normalfor this time of year. You know,

(01:25):
we should be getting about one inchof rain per week. So the
fact that we've been normal for onemonth is not enough to really get us
out of the out of the severedraw conditions that that we've been experiencing.
Yeah, and what you mentioned here, of course earlier on April, May
June just dry as a bone andthose are really the vital months when we

(01:49):
need it. Huh yeah, yeah, very much. I mean, I
you know, I was very amazed, how you know, if you go
back to two and twelve, thelast time we had such a severe jow
like this, a very similar thinghappened where I know at our house in
June to the first part of July, we had about a quarter inch or
rain when we should add about seveninches or rain. That was back in

(02:09):
twenty twelve, and I thought thatI would never see something like that again,
you know, it being so bonedry, and this year was actually
as dry or even dry or overthat, you know, over that same
time period across many parts of southernWisconsin. So so pretty impressive. Yeah.
And you know, and you saidthat seven inch mark back in twenty

(02:30):
twelve. I believe it was likeeight inches we were short before we started
to see any rain pick up.And when I say pick up, not
picking up like we'd like it too, but just a little because there was
just nothing. It seemed like italmost had it out for us. That
you'd look at the radar and Okay, something's coming and then nope, it
would quickly change course and we'd bestanding there like where's that rain? Uh

(02:54):
huh, yep, yep. Thathappened twenty twelve and again this year,
and it just I mean, there'sreally what can you do about it?
Now? You have written so manyarticles as far as droughts in we're going
to get into flash droughts that phenomenon. But one of your articles is kind

(03:15):
of how you can prepare for anextreme drought. And I suppose you can
prepare for anything, but you're reallyat the mercy of Mother nature. Yeah,
you really are. I mean,you know, it kind of depends
upon you know, like what kindof occupation you're in when it comes to
drought. You know, I've I'veworked with some people at the University of

(03:35):
Nebraska Lincoln to talk to farmers andranchers to try to better understand what kind
of impacts they experienced from drought,what kind of information they could use to
make more informed decisions, you know, to try to mitigate the impacts of
drought. And you know, it'sbeen a very it's been very insightful because
drought impacts very greatly across the US. You know, it also depends up

(04:00):
like the kind of farming practices thatpeople are using, you know, the
different susceptibilities to drought. Almost avery important topic though, because you know,
when you experience droughts like this,you really have to be able to
be resilient and develop capabilities to withstanddrought that may last for just a couple

(04:20):
up too. I know you'll youget ear fools about it from some critics
who say there's no such thing.But is this all just more evidence of
climate change? That's a good question. Um, I don't really know for
sure. You know, when whenyou look at the when you look at
the long term climate records, weget these kinds of extremes across you know,

(04:46):
pretty much all parts of the USwhere you might give multiple depth.
Some of the climate model projections doindicate that conditions could get drier over the
next you know, seventy years.You know, take it the year twenty
one hundred. Uh, you know, but we'll see if that happens um
and put someone well, yeah,that's very true. I mean, I

(05:08):
mean I've had you know, I'vehad conversations with people recently where, you
know, when you have these reallywet decades like this, I actually tend
to think that it makes us evenmore susceptible or drought because when you're going
five, ten, fifteen years betweendroughts, when you get a year like
this then like we're having this year, it really hits you hard because it's

(05:32):
out of the ordinary, you know, Whereas if you get droughts on a
more regulars, that gives you moreof a chance to become more you know,
just just to adapt to those kindsof kinds of extremes. You know,
psych do we share a pretty similarsort of climate or has Nebraska been
traditionally drier than we have been herein Wisconsin, or what Nebraska is a

(05:54):
little bit drier than we They tendto get quite a bit hotter during the
summer. You know, where wemight have average high in the the low
eighties in July and they might bein the midopery or just traditionally, you
know, it just it won't happenbecause they have always been dry. Now
have they seen an opposite in theSouthwest? From what I'm hearing, all

(06:15):
I've been hearing about is the heatand these high these high temps. I
guess I haven't really focused on precipitationwise. It always strikes me as that
the Southwest and California always want morerain. Yeah, the Southwest has been
They've had very interesting whether the pastthree or four years where they were in

(06:35):
exceptional drought for for quite a longtime, and then last winter they had
record rainfall or near record rainfall andsnowfall across West. But they are also
dependent upon the Southwestern monsoon during thesummer to give them some of their summer
rainfall, and it just hasn't startedthis year because they have been under just

(06:59):
this persistent heat dome that has ledto the record high temperatures. Like in
Phoenix, you know, they've beenabove one hundred I think above one hundred
ten degrees for something like three weeksnow. And you know, so they're
actually falling back in a drought againbecause it's has such such a poor monsoon
this year. Yeah, I knowit. And in parts of Wisconsin definitely

(07:21):
looking like you would be in Arizonaor you know, it was just the
lawns and that's just you know,on the lighter side of things, we
talk about a drought and it's it'svery serious business for our farmers and for
the growing season. Is there isthere any Now, you're an earth scientist,
but I'm sure you dabble in eggscience as well. I do.

(07:46):
Uh. I grew up on afarm in Minnesota, so I I could
speak the language of some extent.You know, it's been a long time.
But whereabouts of Minnesota far southwestern Minnesota, basically in South Dakoa. Okay,
yeah, yeah, South Dakota.Boy, that's another one, pretty
nigh Yeah it does. Um.I personally think it's just it's beautiful country.

(08:09):
It's it's Mike crunch I. Ilove the planes and uh. Any
transition from the crop land and theeastern part of South Dakota into the you
know, the range lands of westernSouth Dakota, and you know, traditionally
they've they've been you know, kindof on that transit transition between the water
areas to the east and in thedrier areas to the west, and you

(08:30):
know, they can get some veryvery intense droughts out there. So here
in Wisconsin now, the latest droughtmap we had been talking about earlier,
pretty much all of Dane County isin that what is it, the extreme
drought category second from the worst,Jason, would you want to just list
what are are there like four categoriesfor measuring droute? Yeah, so with

(08:56):
with the US Drought Monitor, theyhave four different DROB categories, so it's
but then they also have a veryheavy emphasis on the impacts, you know,
what kind of impacts are they actuallyexperiencing in a given location, and
then they can relate those back tothe different levels of drought severity. I'll

(09:16):
mention you're the you know, theUS DRAB Monitor. It's a very useful
tool because within the job monitoring community, there are you know, literally hundreds
of different metrics you can look atto try to try to determine what drobt
severity is. And it quickly becomesoverwhelmingly. You know, you can say
we are in moderate drought or severedrought, then you can take actions based

(09:41):
on that. And I see hereas far as Dane County, southern Wisconsin
definitely the worst of it, butelsewhere in the state still there's some level
of drought. I didn't see anyportion of the state maybe a little sliver
here or there that was completely notmentioned. Yep, yep, we are.

(10:01):
You know, the entire state isin either abnormally giant conditions or draw
right now. And I see heretoo. It goes into northern Illinois and
central Illinois even impacted. I'd imagine, um, Iowa, how's Iowa doing.
Yeah, Iowa's been in jow too, Uh, you know, Iowa

(10:22):
and Illinois, and then eastward acrossIndiana and Michigan. They were also falling
into very very extreme draw conditions earlierthis month. But they have been more
fortunate than us in terms of gettingrained. They've had pretty regular rainfall across
parts of those states, so they'vebeen able to you know, basically be

(10:43):
able to erode some of their drawconditions across those states. We've also seen
some benefits here in Wisconsin, butit's been more localized, you know,
so like here in Madison, we'veactually been quite fortunate. You know that
the airport in Madison is that oneof the wettest spots across southern Wisconsin during
the last month, you know,so the so the improvements that we've seen

(11:05):
here in the city of Madison arenot representative of what other parts. Trend
for the neighborhood is to go outand check the rain gage anytime the rain
does come down, and just howit can differ from what I receive at
my house to a place just acouple of miles down the road. M
yep. You know, I obviouslythink that's a difference between a you know,

(11:28):
a more typical summer and in thesedrug kind of years. You know,
when you have a more typical summer, you get those big thunderstorm complexes
that roll across the state, andyou know, half the stay will get
an inch of rain or two inchesof rain, you know, all just
in one shot. When these dryyears, you end up with much spottier

(11:50):
rainfall to where if you're lucky andyou get in one, if you get
under one of those thunderstorms, youmight get an inch of rain, but
like I said, a couple ofmiles away, you miss and you don't
get anything again. And that's beenhappening a lot this year, with the
exception of that one. I haveyour rainstorm that we had a couple of
weeks ago that was a much morewide spread. Have your rainfall that was,

(12:13):
you know, delf and beneficial tothe area. Yeah, a godsend.
I heard that term used at time. And again I mean, if
you saw you're a farmer next doordancing out in the field, they're not
nut snow. That was. Ihave a farmer that lives by me and
his daughter just graduated high school andthey had a graduation party, of course,

(12:35):
and he said, I don't knowwhat I'm more happy about that,
you know, she's through high schoolor that we got rain. It's kind
of a combo celebration. I mean, it was really dire in it was
it was getting very nerve racking.And again we're still far from out of
it, but at least we've beengetting a little bit. And that that
rain a couple of weeks ago agame changer. Yeah, and instead of

(12:58):
been coming in an important time,you know, because July is a very
critical month for corn that's when itwhen pollination occurs, and when you can
get those little shots of rain,it really helps with the pollination and it
really helps the corn to be ableto at least set the stage for a
good yield in the fall. Andthe way things were setting up by the

(13:20):
fourth of July, it was goingto be an absolute disaster. But that
rainfall we've had the last few weekswas very good timing, you know,
not just for the corn, butalso for the soybeans to Yeah, is
there any crop here in the Midwestthat does one crop do better than another
when it comes to even when weget in these dry periods or do they

(13:43):
all are they all equally as vulnerable. It really kind of depends upon when
the drought occurs. So, like, you know, July is really critical
for corn, but then later inthe summer tends to be more important for
soybeans because that's when the the beanpods are actually filling, you know what,
the soybeans inside of them, Solike the soybeans right now are are

(14:07):
set in their pods, and youknow, I've seen it, like you
know, when I was you know, growing up in Minnesota, where they
could set their beans nicely now,but then if it turns dry in the
late summer, they don't have enoughmoisture to actually fill and you still get
a small crop. Um So youknow, so like you said, we're
not we're not out of the woodsyet. You know, if we flip

(14:28):
back into dry weather, we couldstill see, you know, being impact
on yields. But to get toa question though, you know, in
the past, you know, maybethirty years ago, the kind of weather
that we've had during the first partof this growing season would have been terrible
with like the corn yields. Butcorn hybreds are so much more resistant to

(14:50):
drought now than what they were thirtyyears ago, to where you know,
I'd still be optimistic that at leastfor the people who did get some beneficial
rain this summer or there in Julyhere, that if we can continue to
get some rainfall this summer, thatthe crop fields will hopefully be pretty good,
you know, But for those littleyou know, for those people that

(15:11):
did not get as much rainfall herein July. You know, I think
that you know that there's still questionsout there about how good the yield will
be, you know, once oncethe harvest happens, this fall. Yeah,
but at least it's not going tobe rotten across the board, you
know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And of course there's a self water
watering. Uh you know that that'salways and that is what the growers will

(15:35):
do. But nothing really can compareto just a good consistent rainfall. Yeah
yeah, I mean natural rainfall isalways better. And why uh well,
I think I think some of it. I mean so so I'm not an
expert on this, you know,I preface my statements with that, but

(15:58):
but I think a lot of itcomes down to you. Uh. You
know, groundwater just has a ithas a different um, you know,
has different characteristics than rainwater. Youknow, it's just not as natural.
It's going to be harder, umthan the natural rainfall will be. Um.
So you know that the plants justaren't going to respond to irrigated water
the same way that they will tonatural rainfall. Yeah. And I know

(16:22):
I'm not a farmer, but Ijust notice it with you know, excuse
me, my my shrub shrubbery andtrees are bovidas and plants and you know
your deck, your patio flowering plants. It just yeah, I'm out there
watering them all the time. Butwhen we get that rain, it's just
a whole different They're greener, they'reit's more lost. It's just it's quite

(16:44):
something. Yeah. Yeah, itreally isn't mean you know that, they
just respond to a lot better.Yeah, how about Jason looking ahead to
a fall crop here? Like pumpkins. We have a lot of you know,
pumpkin growers and that sort of thing, um is it's still wait and
see or does this throw off thefall crop as well? You know,

(17:04):
I don't know. I don't knowmuch about pumpkins. Okay, well,
I appreciate you telling me that.I don't know either. So maybe my
next program I'll get a pumpkin guyon or something like that and we'll focus
on fall crops. I know whatyou do know a whole lot about,

(17:25):
and that is flash drouts, andup until just recently, if I've heard
this term before, I've forgotten it. But I've been reminded time and again
over the past few weeks about flashdroughts. Just what in the heck is
that? I suppose you have aflash flood, you have a flash strout.
Huh Yeah, So what flash droughtsare are? They are droughts that
develop much more quickly than normal.And basically the motivation behind the term flash

(17:51):
drought is when people think about droughts, I think the usually envision something that
takes many months, you know,maybe even years to really reach its full
intensity. I used to think that, yeah, oh yeah, yeah,
I mean, I you know,I think that's a lot of people still
think of. But but what we'veseen many times across the US and also
also around the world during the pastdecade is that these kinds of droughts can

(18:17):
actually develop very quickly. You know. So you think about like Wisconsin this
year, we actually had one ofour wettest winters ever. So we came
in in this growing season looking reallygood. Yeah you know that, you
know, the soils were wet,you know, very optimistic for the year,
and they're just quit raining and thatled to very rapid out development.

(18:38):
And that's basically the hallmark of flashdrought. So and and a flash you
know, like when we think oflike flash flooding, it's just you know,
something that happens just for a briefmoment of time and then it's on
to what have you. But aflash drought isn't that quick. That's correct.

(19:00):
Us It's actually some terminology within ourfield that we have struggled with some
because some people want to apply likethat same concept of flash flood to flash
drought, thinking that it happens quicklyand disappears. But what we really mean
by flash drought is how quickly itdevelops. So you could have a flash

(19:23):
drought that develops very quickly over let'ssay three weeks, and then it can
end very fast too if you getreally heavy rainfall. Or it can be
like, well, we have thisyear where we have that rapid intensification back
in June, but then we've kindof just stabilized here at severe to extreme
drought conditions, and this drought couldactually last for a long time yet and

(19:47):
it would still be a flashdrought.I don't really think so, you know,
you know, flash droughts really justjust that intensification phase. But but
it's a really important thing to notebecause whenever you have organizations that try to
respond drought, you know, totry to mitigate its impacts, if they
are expecting that they're going to havemany months to prepare for it and instead

(20:11):
they only have one month to preparefor it, that really really changes is
how you can respond to it.You know, it really compresses the time
frame over which you can make thosedecisions and try to mitigate the impacts of
drought. And I suppose that's whatyou're busy doing day to day behind the
scenes, when you're not dazzling themedia with your earth science expertise, but

(20:34):
meeting with policymakers and those and othersin the industry as far as how to
get a handle on this. Yeah, I personally haven't done that very much,
but I have worked with people whohave And you say, I've worked
with somebody from the University of Nebraska. He's the director of the National Job

(20:56):
Mitigation Center, a guy named Marx, and he's actually the person that coined
the term flash drought about twenty yearsago, and he's actually very very heavily
involved in working with people in Washington, DC. Is also involved with the
United Nations and trying to, youknow, try to make people understand what

(21:23):
flash droughts are in the context ofdrought in general, and how when you
have like different government organizations that havethese drought mitigation plans that they need to
be something that you know, theybasically have to be in place ahead of
time when flash drought occurs. Thisis not something you can spin up on

(21:45):
the fly. This isn't something thatyou can take a month to get,
you know, to get your draughtemergency teams ready. They basically had to
be ready at the beginning of it. And it requires a different a different
framework then. And you know,when people think of drought as something takes
a long time to development, itdoesn't. It catches people unaware, you

(22:06):
know, so it really is achange of philosophy. So here Jason,
thinking globally, now, as faras a drought, I've been hearing about
portions of Europe extremely hot, Asia, China specifically heat and what have you
fires in Greece and they've also beenabnormally dry. Correct, Yes, they

(22:26):
have been. And globally as faras the food supply, could we be
and you throw in uh Russia andUkraine, could we be in for some
more nightmares? Yeah, I mean, I mean it's always possible. Um.
You know, when when you knowthere's there's been some work that has

(22:49):
been done recently where they look atwhen you have droughts or are the kind
of extreme weather that impacts multiple foodproducing regions across the world, and you
know, Oftentimes it's just one ortwo that will have these kinds of extremes.
But if you can get multiple breadbaskets with droughts or flooding, it

(23:12):
can definitely have a big impact onyields and then in turn what the grain
prices are, and you know,the prices that we're going to be paying
at the grocery store. Yeah,so yeah, let's hope it doesn't get
to the levels. I mean,it's just been one thing after I don't
need to tell you or anybody listening, but my god, again, this

(23:33):
all just slow down a bit,one disaster after the next. As far
as remind me again, because twentytwelve, I know, just over ten
years ago. I still I recalla little bit the drought year, but
I don't remember how it turned out. Did we bounce back pretty good?

(23:53):
Or is that like a horror showof a year? Twelve was definitely a
bulow normal year when it came tocorn and soyben yields. The yields weren't
as bad across the eastern part ofthe corn belt because they dige some some
some rainfall later in the summer,but basically from Wisconsin Illinois westward drought conditions

(24:19):
persisted that you know, mostly atthat summer, and yields weren't very good.
But like I said earlier though,because corn hybrids themselves are so much
better now than what they were thirtyyears ago. Instead of it being basically
a complete bust, you know,it was only maybe twenty or thirty percent
below trend, you know. Soyou know, so that's why I'm still

(24:42):
optimistic about this year, because like, this year has not been as extreme
across the Midwest as twenty twelve.Boys. You know, it's been bad
here in Wisconsin, but you know, but I also were in the Midwest,
it hasn't been as bad. Yeah, Okay, so it's still keeping
our finger crossed and get through itwithout too too much of a major disaster

(25:06):
here and then out of the farmfield. And just you know, our
our environment, how our environment dealswith this, Like our trees, a
good um sturdy, long standing tree, how how long can it go without
a good water source or a goodsupply of water? Well, I would

(25:26):
say, I mean, if it'sa native tree, most of those trees
are going to be able to withstandmost of the drafts that we're going to
get here in Wisconsin that the problemsare going to be when you have some
of the younger trees, especially thosethat are not native to the area,
and you know, maybe surrounded bysidewalk on one side, a road on
the other, you know, wherethey don't have you know, the you

(25:48):
know, the you know the ground, I mean, the soil is not
going to you know, capture therainfall like it would out in a natural
forest. And you know, Iactually saw that in our neighborhood earlier this
month, where over the course ofa few days there were about half a
dozen young trees that just died.Yeah, all the same time. It

(26:11):
was a bad year to put innew sod, that's for sure. Yeah.
Yeah, you can be watering thattwice a day every day. Absolutely.
And you know when when you lookat the drought and know a lot
of focus and I get why thereis so much focus on our crops and
that sort of thing. It's thelifeblood for many in Wisconsin and just how
everybody's impacted about are impacted by agriculture, But a drought can impact all all

(26:37):
levels of the ecosystem. Oh,definitely, yep. And are we seeing
anything as far as a dying offof insects or you know, birds reaction
to it. Yeah, I mean, I actually I actually saw a report
earlier this week that I was talkingabout, um, you know, a

(26:57):
lot of like the summer wild flowers, they never really grew this year.
And and I noticed that too.I like to take walks out on on
the Ice Age National Trail, andI walked through a grassland during that walk,
and you know, I was struckby just how few flowers there have
been this year. Yeah, Imean, definitely have perked up here with

(27:21):
the rainfall the last few weeks,you know, but the lack of those
wildflowers, it makes it much harderon like bees and other pollinators. And
you know, bees have been strugglinganyways because of various, you know,
various disease pressures on them. Sohaving a year like this with even fewer
flowers to then be able to youknow, to pollinate, is definitely not

(27:41):
good for them. Yeah, that'sjust another aspect of it. Also,
And this has nothing really to dowith the drought. It's just another one
of these disasters we've been dealing withwith the bad air quality and the impacts
of that. Yeah, we we'vebeen kind of unfortunate this year. Yeah,
how we have as as we're gettingclose to wrapping it up, Jason,

(28:06):
I'm thinking, my god, thishas just been a ll of a
year. Not good. Yeah,it's been. It's been really strange because
you know, during the summer,we tend to get more southerly winds.
You know, we get the heatfrom the south. But this year we've
had a lot of northerly winds.You know, they've had a lot of
wildfires in um you know, solike northwestern Canada, like the Yukon helping

(28:30):
that part, and then we getthe northwesterly winds to bring the smoke down.
And then when we get the northeasterlywinds, we're getting all the smoke
from Ontario and Quebec. So,you know, in more in more typical
years, with the southerly winds,all that smokers is blown away from us,
we don't get any of it.But this year it keeps coming down
to us. So we've had alot of bad air quality this summer.

(28:52):
Yeah, we have a drought,bad air and uh well, hopefully good
things to come around the corner here. I've been talking this morning. My
guest has been Jason Adkin. Heis a research scientist at the Space Science
and Engineering Center right here in Madisonat the UW Madison. Jason, any
thoughts before we have to wrap itup here. Let's just be optimistic,

(29:17):
you know, let's hope that thingsimprove as we continue through the summer.
We've had a few wetter weeks hereand hopefully it continues. Yeah. Again,
I'm talking with Jason on the Thursdaybefore this air of Sunday. But
of course Wednesday, yesterday, wehad a good rain and we're looking here
over the weekend that we have somegood chances for some more precipitation, So

(29:38):
just keep it coming. Jason,again, many thanks to you for joining
me this morning. You've been listeningto Madison Forum.