-03.20.09- Winter is giving itself a last hurrah in some parts of the Northeast, bringing snowflakes on the first day of spring. Lire la suite

-03.22.09- Flooding hit western and central North Dakota on Saturday, forcing seven families in one town to evacuate, as the Federal Emergency Management Agency prepared to send a team to the state. Families in the western section of Mott, a town of about 850 people in the southwestern part of the state, had to leave their homes when the Cannonball River began overflowing its banks. Water also was reported over county and township roads in Hettinger, Morton and Emmons counties. Lire la suite

-03.19.09- The Red River of the North along the Minnesota-North Dakota border faces the nation’s greatest threat of spring flooding, the government said in it’s weather outlook Thursday. Lire la suite

-03.18.09- This winter, temperatures in Iran were much warmer than in previous years, to the point that people sought out the shade to protect themselves from getting sunburns. The warming has been compounded by the drought, which is worse than last year’s. Water flows in some of Iran’s rivers are slowing down, the mountain snow is melting like heated butter, many wells have run dry, and farmers are despondent. Lire la suite

-03.21.09- Drought and unsustainable farming methods left 83 percent of Morton County, home to Elkhart, in extreme southwestern Kansas, barren, and fierce prairie winds blew much of the land away. No other county in the six Dust Bowl states had a greater portion of its land devastated. Seventy-five years later, the land is blowing again. The past two years have been among the driest since the Dust Bowl days. Five inches of rain fell in October, the wettest month here since June 2004. There has been 0.65 inches of moisture since. Lire la suite

-03.21.09- The Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation reports that 49 provinces have been declared drought-stricken zones with more than six million people affected by drought. According to the department’s latest report on the drought situation, 49 drought-hit provinces consist of 15 provinces in the North, 17 provinces in the Northeast, 5 provinces in the Central Plains, 7 provinces in the East, et 5 provinces in the South. Plus de 780,000 rai of farmlands have been severely damaged. Lire la suite

-03.22.09- Plus de 200 farmers in the northern province of Phichit protested Sunday, demanding that the Royal Irrigation Department (RID) deepen provincial canals so that they can receive enough irrigation water for their rice crop as severe drought batters the region. Lire la suite

-03.19.09- Kenya’s drought and food shortages are expected to last until March 2010, seven months longer than previously projected, said a joint Kenya-United Nations report posted online Thursday. “The failure of the 2008 mid-October to December short rains … has precipitated a food security crisis in those areas,” the report said. “Apart from crop failure, the poor rains caused severe water shortages.” Lire la suite

-03.19.09- South Florida felt its first deluge of rain in weeks on Wednesday, but it wasn’t nearly enough to ease severe drought conditions across the region. And with this burst of showers expected to go away by Friday, the few inches that fell this week will probably amount to the proverbial drop in a bucket. Miami-Dade and Broward counties have received about 20 percent of their usual rainfall since November, putting them 10 à 12 inches below normal. Lire la suite

-03.20.09- Acting Uruguayan Agriculture Minister Andres Berterreche estimated crop losses from several months of drought have topped $450 millions. Economy Minister Alvaro Garcia said the “final assessment of (la sécheresse) losses could be even higher,” in part, because Uruguay’s primary energy supply is from domestic hydroelectric sources. Lire la suite