drought

Vegetable and fruit growers in the Salinas Valley on California's Central Coast "are actually thriving despite historically dry conditions - at least for now," says the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

The drought in California is creating an unexpected threat to the state's almond growers. Water drawn from wells on the west side of Central California is high in salt, says Valley Public Radio in Fresno, which could adversely affect crop yields.

Due to hotter weather and more days without rain, the length of forest fire season has grown by 19 percent over the past 35 years, says a team of researchers.

In Los Animas, Colo, farmers wait their turn to tap the irrigation canal to water a fraction of their acreage. It's called babysitting the water and the work can run all night. The Washington Post visited drought-hit sections of Colorado for a story on how drought dries up growers' finances as well as their land. The past three-and-a-half years have been drier than the Dust Bowl for parts of the state.

Widespread rain - from 3-6 inches, or more, in some places - fell in the central and southern Plains, the heart of the Wheat Belt, over the past month, said the weekly Drought Monitor. Officials said they want to "better assess the impacts from recent precipitation and to consider areas ripe for downgrades next week."

Long-running drought has "shrunk the kernels and disrupted the proteins of winter wheat crops" in the Pacific Northwest, which grows one-fifth of the U.S. crop, says the Seattle Times.

America's almond craze - per-capita consumption doubled in the past seven years - "has come at a cost," says Bloomberg. Prices are up by $1 per pound from last year and growers feel the strain of the fourth year of drought in California, the largest almond producer.

Five western states - Idaho, Utah, Washington, Oregon and California - saw the hottest June this year in 121 years of record-keeping, says the weekly Drought Monitor.

Five water districts sued California's State Water Resources Board over its decision to ban senior water rights holders from drawing water out of rivers and streams in the Sacramento and San Joaquin watersheds, said the Sacramento Bee.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy told fellow Republicans to expect a floor vote this month on a bill to release more water from federal projects to farmers and communities in the West by reducing the amounts guaranteed for wildlife.

A state survey shows a 30-percent drop in the population of breeding waterfowl in California in one year due to drought and poor habitat, says the Sacramento Bee.

"For many Californians, the state’s long drought has meant small inconveniences such as shorter showers and restrictions on watering lawns.

California's almond growers will harvest a record-setting crop of 2.1 million pounds this year, up 4.5 percent from last year, says USDA, despite a three-year drought. The record crop is 2.03 million pounds in 2011. Acreage is up this year. "Orchards required irrigation in the winter months due to the lack of precipitation, but rain early in the season offered some temporary relief," said USDA.

The drought in California has a potential upside - less water means more flavorful wine, says public radio KPCC in Pasadena. A winemaker in Napa, Stephanie Honig, says this could be a banner year for California wine.

While drought is entrenched in the West, it has disappeared in the rest of the country for the most part. Some 23 percent of the contiguous United States is in drought, a drop of 15 points since the first week of May, says the Drought Monitor.

State regulators have reduced water discharge from Lake Shasta in Northern California in hopes of boosting the survival rate of juvenile fish threatened with extinction, says the Sacramento Bee.

The State Water Resources Board ordered a reduction in water allotments to some of California's most senior rights holders, who have been assured of unlimited water from waterways for more than a century, said the San Jose Mercury News.

Jutta Thoerner is an outspoken advocate of the age-old practice of dry-farming - relying only on rain water, California's four-year drought notwithstanding, says public broadcaster KQED.