“California’s worsening drought reached a new, ominous milestone this week just as the typical dry season begins for much of the state,” says The Weather Channel. It says the weekly Drought Monitor “shows the entire state is in some form of drought for the first time since the report began tracking such statistics at the beginning of 2000.” The area of exceptional drought, the most severe rating, expanded to include Monterrey County and more of the San Francisco Bay area.
Drought also expanded in the central and southern Plains, said the weekly report. Overall, 38.43 pct of the 48 contiguous states was in moderate to exceptional drought, compared to 37.88 pct one week earlier.
In Orange Cove, Calif., farm worker Salvador Perez says if there is no water, there is no work, according to an NPR blog. “Everything that everyone has been warning about over the past few months is starting to happen. Workers are getting laid off as prized fruit and nut trees are going unwatered, and fields are going fallow.”