A year ago, farmers in Kansas and Oklahoma were at the center of the nation’s worst drought. Now that distinction belongs to the Southwest — and increasingly to the mid-Atlantic.
The U.S. Drought Monitor shows most of southern New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle in severe drought conditions, while all of Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas are in some level of worsening drought.
The rainfall shortage is parching rangeland that’s important to feeding cattle, and it’s stretching crops like cotton that rely on irrigation from dwindling aquifers in the Southwest, according to farmers and agricultural extension agents.
“It’s actually worse than it appears,” said Jourdan Bell, lead agronomist with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service in Amarillo.
