More than half of the country was under moderate to extreme drought in June, the largest area of the contiguous United States affected by such dryness in nearly 60 years. Nearly 1,300 counties across 29 states have been declared federal disaster areas. Areas under moderate to extreme drought in June of each year are shown in orange below. Last month surpassed July 1936, the depths of the Dust Bowl, as the hottest month on record in the lower 48 states. The Department of Agriculture has declared almost 1,700 counties — about 56 percent of all U.S. counties — as natural-disaster areas caused by a drought that has seared millions of acres of pasture and cropland from Nebraska to Texas. Prices of wheat and corn have risen so much that ranchers have slaughtered cattle to avoid the cost of feeding them.
Source: New York Times
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The plunge in the water supply is mostly the result of a simple geological process. Without rain, aquifers deep beneath the ground have not been getting the water that seeps into the earth to replenish their supplies. In one part of northwest Indiana, the groundwater level had dropped as much as 40 feet since late spring, or about eight times more than it normally does.
ANRIC BLATT 