East Coast

Normal Rainfall Won't Break Drought
Associated Press, August 1, 1999

Good news: The weatherman expects normal rainfall in August. Bad news: That won't even start to relieve the drought in much of the country. “We need a couple of feet of water to get out of this. That's a couple of tropical storms,” D. James Baker, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said Sunday. Baker, appearing on CBS Face the Nation, said the drought in the Northeast is the worst in 30 years and the second-worst of the century. “Droughts take a long time to set up, and they take a long time to get rid of,” Baker said. “And in fact, even if we go back to normal rainfall for August, which is what we expect to have, it's not going to give up for a long time. In some parts of the country, it may go through the winter.”

On the same program, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said the ground is as dry in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast as it has been since the Great Depression. Despite that regional crisis, Glickman said, people in most places should expect no serious increases in food prices or supply. “Ironically, the heartland of America - Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, all through the middle - they're doing pretty well now in terms of rainfall,” Glickman said. “That means that this drought and heat wave probably won't have any kind of dramatic effect on food prices or shortages.” There could be problems, however, in supplies of fresh produce in Northeastern cities, the secretary said. In parts of the region, he said, rainfall is 50 percent to 80 percent below normal.