Drought Has Calves "Moo-ving" Down the Road

 There are plenty of jokes about the hot weather:

• It’s so hot the cows are producing evaporated milk.
• It’s so hot chickens are laying hard-boiled eggs.
• It’s so hot you can wash and dry your clothes at the same time.
• It’s so hot I bought a loaf of bread, and by the time I got home, it was toast.

But, the heat and the deficit of rain are really no laughing matter. 

Kansas Drought Monitor, August 25, 2022

August continued the dry trend for 2022 in Kansas. The lack of moisture that began last winter took a toll on pasture lands this summer. Tye and Todd, who are managing and caring for our cow/calf pairs, made the difficult decision to sell calves born last winter earlier than usual. 

August 17, 2022

Typically, we don't sell calves until the following winter or spring. However, this isn't the first time that we've had to sell early because of drought.

August 17, 2022 - This was an overcast day, but we didn't get rain.

The shortage of grass in pastures had them sorting the calves from the mothers and arranging for their transport to the Farmers & Ranchers Livestock Commission Co. in Salina for the August 25 sale. This will help conserve the grass for the mama cows, who are currently carrying babies who'll be born in early 2023.

Tye and Todd have marketed their cattle through the Salina sale barn before. However, it was the first time for Randy and me. (Randy had bought some cows at the Salina sale years ago, so he'd been there. It was my first experience.)

Randy and I have always marketed the majority of our cattle through the Pratt Livestock sale barn. We took a day trip to check out the unfamiliar action and watch our calves sell last Thursday in Salina.

We got there with plenty of time to spare, so after watching the action awhile and getting the lay of the land, I turned to a familiar past-time - reading my book until it was our turn.

This was a first for Randy. He didn't help gather or sort the calves from the cows. He volunteered, but they accomplished the task without him. (As hot as it was, he ended up being OK with that.)

The calves averaged 454 pounds apiece. The steers averaged 476 pounds and the heifers averaged 443 pounds each. Randy was pleased enough with the price.

2022 is shaping up to be a historically severe year for dry, hot weather in Kansas. But, it still falls far short of the worst droughts in the state’s history. Roughly one-third of Kansas is now in extreme or exceptional drought. But nearly three-fourths of Kansas has some degree of drought.

In Dodge City, this year ranks as the 4th hottest and 12th driest on record going back to the 1870s. But Jeff Hutton, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Dodge City, says 2022 still won’t come close to becoming the driest, hottest year in recorded history. Hutton says 2012, 1980 and 1936, still stand up as the driest and hottest years for most parts of Kansas. Hutton expects the state to get enough precipitation this fall to keep 2022 from breaking those records.

Rattlesnake Creek pasture (Big Pasture) - August 17, 2022

In an interview with the Kansas News Service, Kansas State University meteorologist Chip Redmond said frequent breaks in the heat and timely bits of moisture have kept 2022 from surpassing the records set by the most extreme years in Kansas history. That illustrates the complexity of trying to compare one bad year with another. 

“We can look at basic statistics, such as average monthly precipitation and temperature and their departure from normal,” said Redmond, who manages K-State’s Kansas Mesonet climate monitoring system. “(But) that doesn’t tell the whole story.” Based on historical data, he said, the years that top the charts for drought and heat in Kansas history came during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s — particularly 1934 and 1936 — and then in 1956, 1974, 1976, 1980, 1983, 2000 and 2011-2012."

 from Kansas News Service

Rainfall totals this year are several inches below normal across Kansas. Hays has received around 9.5 inches of precipitation so far in 2022. That’s roughly half of the 18 inches it can usually expect to bank by this time of year. Hutchinson has seen fewer than 14 inches of precipitation when it’s supposed to have more than 22 inches. Only 6.5 inches have fallen on Scott City — way less than its usual 15 inches. 

Here’s another way to look at it: How many inches of rain would a town need today in order to get back in line with its historical year-to-date average? For places like Hays, Hutchinson and Scott City, it would take more than eight inches of rain to climb out of their current deficits. Some pockets of northwest, central and southeast Kansas would need more than 10 inches of rain just to get back to average. But even with how dry it’s been this year, 2022 doesn’t come close to being the driest in Kansas history. “This year has quite a bit of work needed,” Redmond said, “if it wants to rank high.” Out of 358 Kansas weather stations measuring precipitation, none have recorded their driest-ever 40-day period in 2022. That’s compared to 46 stations that set records for their driest 40-day period in 2000, 39 that set records in 1983 and 10 that still have records standing from the Dust Bowl in 1936.

This chart from The Kansas News Service shows that we are more than 11 inches behind "normal" in Stafford County. A lack of moisture can directly fuel hotter temperatures, too. The drier soil gets, Hutton said, the faster it heats up. 

Another way to assess this year’s heat is to compare the number of days that reached 100 degrees. In Wichita, 23 days have hit that mark so far this year. Wichita’s total puts 2022 in the top 10 percent of its recorded history. But it’s still not close to breaking records. “I’ve already heard people say, ‘Oh, it’s the hottest year ever,’” Hutton said. “No, it’s not. We only have to go back 11 years to 2011.” Dodge City set a record with 50 days of 100-degree weather that year. So far in 2022, it has seen 31 days that hot.

While that doesn’t come close to touching 2011’s record, it still means that 2022 already has the sixth most 100-degree days ever recorded in Dodge City. 

I have photos from the 2012 drought and its effects on our Rattlesnake Creek pasture.

August 2012 - no water in the Rattlesnake - at the bridge

At the eastern border of our pasture - August 2012

In comparison, there was some water remaining in the creek in mid-August, though it was definitely low. 

August 17, 2022 - at the eastern border of our pasture

We did get some help with our totals on August 27. The Rattlesnake pasture got 2.4" of rain. At home, we had about 1.25". However, people who lived south of us, even as little as 10 miles, got nothing. My brother, who farms in northern Pratt County, got very little rain.

So we know how fortunate we were to get last Saturday's rain. But we'd still love to be able to order up several rainy, cool days.

August 17, 2022 - at the bridge