By: Sophia Puertas

THE SCIENCE OF DROUGHTS

Where do droughts usually happen?• Droughts usually happen in dry places like deserts.As you can see on the map, Texas is a very popular place for droughts. If you go to Texas, drink lots of water!

How often do droughts occur?• Droughts usually happen in hot places without rain for a long period of time. Droughts often occur when there are temperature changes. After a drought, it rains a lot. A huge historical drought in Texas just ended, and a lot of rain came which caused flash flooding. Here is a picture. There is a graph on the next page.

Graph

What structures/features are directly involved with droughts?• There are many things that are involved with droughts, but I will just discuss some of them. The first one is rain. If there is no rain for a while, a drought may start. If the temperature goes up a lot, it may also cause a drought.

What happens during a typical occurrence?• During a typical occurrence:• 1. Temperature goes increasingly up• 2. No rain• 3. Bodies of water dry out• 4. Cracks in earth

What are the most extreme conditions of droughts?• The most extreme conditions of droughts are the ones that go for years. Many people and animals die because they don’t get water. Sometimes droughts can be ten years!

How are droughts measured?• You usually measure droughts by the number of days without rainfall and how much under average the rainfall is. • Here is a chart of average rainfall each month.

What are the after affects of droughts?• The after affects of droughts are:• Flooding because of all the rain afterwards• Many dead animals and people• loss of plant life which is sometimes food• death by heat

What are the key terms related to droughts?• The key terms related to droughts are:• Flood, dehydration, scarce, and rainlessness.• Fun Fact: the word drought is a noun.

Fun Facts!!!!• Droughts can affect a fairly small area for a season or an entire continent for years. • Too little rainfall can cause shortages in the water supply, destroy crops, and cause widespread hunger. • Droughts also dry up soil, which then gets picked up by the wind and causes dust storms. • Between Spring and early Fall 2002, moderate to extreme drought conditions over large portions of 30 states resulted in an estimate of more than $ 10.0 billion in damages and costs.• Deserts suffer from permanent drought. Many tropical places have a seasonal drought, with ongoing dry seasons.• Cacti are drought resistant.

Thank you to:• http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/ for the Drought Monitor!• http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46237916/ns/weather/#.

TywOLqgjbdk for the picture of flash flooding in texas.• http://drought.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/class.html for the drought graph.• http://www.flickr.com/photos/oxfam/3968591629/ for the animal

picture.• http://

www.guide-to-disney.com/when-to-go-to-disney-world/rainfall.php for the average rainfall chart.• http://thesaurus.com/browse/drought for some of the key terms.• First three fun facts are from http://

www.weatherwizkids.com/weather-words.htm#D • Fact number four is from http://

library.thinkquest.org/03oct/00544/english/droughts_facts.htm• Fact number 5 is from http://

www.houseandhome.org/tag/interesting-facts-about-droughts