(OPINION) ETH – Over the past couple of years we have become accustomed to expecting the unexpected, but soon we may have to start anticipating the unthinkable. In this article, I am going to be discussing a couple of potential scenarios that would have been unimaginable to the vast majority of Americans just a few short years ago. Unfortunately, our world is now changing at a pace that is absolutely breathtaking, and many things that were once “unimaginable” could soon become reality.
Let’s start by talking about the record-setting heatwave which is making the epic megadrought in the western half of the country even worse. Many western farmers planted crops this year hoping that weather conditions would eventually turn in their favor, but that has definitely not happened. In fact, at this point, 88 percent of the West is experiencing at least some level of drought.
2021 has been the worst year of this multi-year megadrought so far, and last week was the worst week for this drought up to this point in 2021. Old temperature records were shattered all over the West, and some areas were already seeing triple digits by 8 o’clock in the morning…
The West is in the midst of a record-breaking heatwave this week, as all-time records were shattered and daily records broken in over a dozen states. Even by desert standards, the heatwave in the Southwest is atypical. On Thursday, the National Weather Service in Tucson tweeted that the city recorded a temperature of 100 degrees at 8:14 a.m., the second earliest time in the day recorded since 1948.
That is crazy. Can you imagine hitting triple digits before you have even finished your morning coffee? Summer had not even officially begun yet last week, and yet new all-time record highs were being established all over the place…
Record-breaking temperatures spread from California to Montana this week. On Thursday, the all-time high temperature was tied in Palm Springs, California at 123 degrees, breaking the previous June record of 122 degrees.
Salt Lake City tied its all-time record high of 107 degrees. The old record was notably set in July — when temperatures are usually at their highest for the year in that region. This comes after daily record highs were broken Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday in Salt Lake, each with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees.
We have never seen anything quite like this in the state of Utah. More than half of the state is in the highest level of drought, and thanks to dramatic water restrictions farmers are being forced to choose which of their crops will die…
With drastic limits placed on what little water he has, Tom Favero said he and many farmers along this west side of Weber County were forced to watch some crops die. “We’ve all made serious choices of what fields we can water and what we can’t,” Favero said. READ MORE
