How dry is it around these parts?
Drier than a Baptist wedding reception, that's how dry. In fact, there's never been a drier July in Omaha.
Is it just me, or have there been a lot of fill-in-the-blank-ever meteorological moments lately? What we could use is a little melting ice sheet to water the parched and cracked earth of the Plains and Midwest.
Then again, climate change rarely does you any favors. As we hear from KETV television in Omaha:
For many farmers, this means giving up on the corn crop.SUCKS, this does. Coastal Americans might be about to get a harsh economic lesson in the importance of "flyover country."
"The corn has basically stopped," farmer John McNamara said.
McNamara said he's been regularly watering his farm in Plattsmouth, but that it doesn't compare to a good rainfall; McNamara has lost 30 to 40 percent of his annual average production.
"You go to one plant, you have nothing. You go to another, you have nothing, this is happening a lot," McNamara said.
Word to the wise: Buy yourself a big freezer and stock up on beef now, when it's cheap because ranchers are having to sell off the herds they no longer can afford to feed because their pastures dried up and turned to dirt. Thus, the market is glutted.
Next year, however. . . .