The good news is the Texas drought should lessen over the next 20 to 30 years. The bad news is, “After that, I turn seriously pessimistic,” says Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon, state climatologist from College Station.
While some good rains have fallen over parts of Texas the last six months, Nielsen-Gammon said rainfall patterns are only one of the major factors in drought.
The other factor is evaporation from increased temperature, he said. Global warming has meant an average temperature increase in Texas of about 1.5 degrees since the 1970s. While this may not seem like much of an increase to most people, it’s enough to increase the evapotranspiration of plants and loss of surface water by several percent.
“Any incremental increase of severity of the drought starts having a huge impact,” Nielsen-Gammon said. “It doesn’t matter at all during normal conditions, but when you’re in an extreme drought, it can make the difference between making it through the drought and not making it through.”