Desert Southwest will face huge water shortages

While crops are still being washed away by raging floodwaters in the soggy Midwest and hailed out in the tornado-devastated Great Plains, areas west of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas are suffering from the worst drought conditions in recent memory into Arizona and California.

Globally, we're seeing the most violent period of WIDE WEATHER 'EXTREMES' since the days of Leif Ericsson, a thousand years ago. I believe that things will get worse weatherwise before they get better between now and 2038, the end of the current wild 70-year cycle.

My wife Sharon and I got the chance to see the western U.S. major drought firsthand during our week in Phoenix, Ariz., prior to Memorial Day while attending our youngest granddaughter Kim's high school graduation.

I had window seats on the two-and-a-half-hour flights in both directions from Spokane to Phoenix and back. What I saw below for much of the trips looked like we were flying over the Sahara Desert in Egypt. The mountains had very little snow left to melt for this summer's irrigation water supplies. There were literally hundreds of dried-up lakes, rivers and streams from southern Idaho and eastern Oregon southward into Arizona.

We stayed at our son Brent's place in Scottsdale for the entire week, taking side trips to the Prescott Valley and a cruise on the Desert Belle on spectacular Saguaro Lake east of Mesa, Ariz.

Brent has only received approximately 2.60 inches of rain at his location all year. It's been bone dry in Scottsdale and Phoenix for the last three months. Dust storms are frequent.

According to recent reports, by 2060, the water deficiency levels in Arizona will be more than 3.2 million-acre-feet annually, exactly the same amount of water households use today on an annual basis.

The U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, stated on Dec. 12, 2012, that if the current drought persists as expected, "the states of Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma and Texas will undoubtedly run out of vital irrigation water supplies."

The Colorado River, which supplies water for Southern California, Nevada's Las Vegas fountains and golf courses, northern Mexico, Arizona and southern Utah, generates hydroelectric power at Hoover Dam before journeying down into bone-dry western Arizona. A series of eight dams suck water from the Colorado as it moves southward towards Mexico. The river no longer reaches the Sea of Cortez. It dries up in the parched desert some 90 miles short of its goal. It hasn't reached the sea since the late 1990s.

To its credit, the state of Arizona has taken drastic measures to buffer the population centers of Phoenix, Tucson and Prescott from extreme water shortages and huge price increases. But, as one official in Phoenix said last week, "When you're running out of water, there's not much one can do."

Let's face it, sharing a river that grows smaller in volume every year for 33 million desert-dwellers is akin to ignoring numerous climate scientists standing on the shore waving their arms and yelling, "Cliff ahead!" And, we just row merrily, merrily, merrily down a disappearing stream until "we go over the falls."

Mankind never seems to learn his lesson until it's far too late. We drink in gulps until the glass is empty.

Next week in 'Gems,' I'll answer many recent questions on 'what is a jet stream?'

NORTH IDAHO WEATHER REVIEW AND LONG-RANGE OUTLOOKS

May of 2013 was certainly another month of WIDE WEATHER 'EXTREMES' across North Idaho, the Inland Empire and much of the rest of the U.S. and Canada.

The first 12 days of May was the warmest such period since at least 1949 and the driest ever with nary a drop of rain in town. The heat peaked at a near-record 87 degrees in Coeur d'Alene on May 11. Some cities in the region soared into the summer-like lower 90s.

The rest of May returned to our previous cycle of 'sun and showers' and temperatures cooled sharply down to a record low maximum reading of just 49 degrees on May 22, which broke the record of 50 degrees set back in 2004.

There were light frosts in the outlying areas between May 23 and May 26. Our gardener north of Rathdrum reported 29 degrees on May 24. We observed a chilly 35 degrees that same morning on Player Drive but, fortunately, no frosts.

As of this May 30 writing, we had gauged a respectable 1.86 inches of rain in the previous 18-day period. Our normal May precipitation since 1895 in Coeur d'Alene has been 2.37 inches. Last May, during the wettest year on record in North Idaho, we measured 2.06 inches of rain in town. We finished 2012 at a whopping 43.27 inches, our only year since 1895 with above 40 inches of precipitation.

Longer-term, we should soon warm back up into the summer-like 80s by early to mid June. There will be showers and thunderstorms at times this June, but the July through September summer season locally still looks warm to hot and much drier than usual under a huge stationary ridge of high pressure.

I'm still worried about the 2013 wildfire season in the bone-dry Far West. I'll have more details as the extreme dryness expands.

Cliff Harris is a climatologist who writes a weekly column for The Press. His opinions are his own. Email sfharris@roadrunner.com