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Drought for the west

Local FS & BLM crews are heading out of state to assist others.

SW NM & AZ finally getting some decent totals of rainfall. Gully washers & tank fillers. 2 months to go with monsoon still,with favorable forecast for more.
Took me a while to figure out the smell in the air recently. Besides ozone from lightning....Grass & wet ground.
Not making much of a dent on the drought yet. It's a long term thing.
We'll do OK. Known factor is it's the SW.

I do not think the effects of this year has hit the northern regions quite yet. But I'm sure some do understand. It is going to get bad this winter. The full effects.
 
For a differant perspective, hay production is 10-15% of normal. As I am in the middle of hay production my biggest headache is trying to follow windrows as they dissapear in the stubble.

The forage in the forest never really came up and is now dry and short. I'm guessing a lot of this may be related to the the freezes in May and June. I haven't had time to walk in the woods yet be am guessing the winter range will be impaired.

I probed the meat processing facilities in the Butte area and was told that they were booked up through Feb. A friend of mine said they were shipping hay from Oklahoma. Locally small square bales are $17/ bale and rationed at 5 bales per week. I will have to sell all my cows by Sept. I have heard of similar issues for many ranchers. Even irrigated hay production is severly depressed. This is and is going to be a tough year. Lot's of luck finding big game this fall.
 
I’m amazed how there hasn’t been a big wind event for many of those fires. There have been a couple that went from a few thousand acres to 20k in a day due to wind.

The Larkins and the Stateline complexes are like a ticking time bomb.

It sounds like the creek bottoms are still wet enough to be blocking spread, but that won't last much longer. I can't imagine trying to fight a fire in that terrain in vegetation. Which is why a lot of it will burn until the weather puts it out.
 
Speaking of monsoons...

Looks like even WA is getting in on the moisture from the gulf of cali. Lots of rain and thunderstorms coming.
Fingers crossed here. My local forecast isn’t showing it at all though
 
There’s been some good rain in NE UT and SW WY with more in the forecast for the weekend. Boy did we sure need it. But it seems the weather extremes continue as I just got this notification.

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