By Alison McFerrin

The Selma Times-Journal

Local farmers and authorities are asking for rain to “come again another day” to remedy what is becoming a drought situation.

“We’re expecting dry and hot conditions throughout the rest of the week,” National Weather Serivce meteorologist Gary Goggins said.

Goggins said Alabama is definitely approaching drought conditions.

“It’s becoming concerning, especially when we have high pressure parked over us for days and days,” he said. “That’s suppressing any cloud cover activity as well as rainfall development across much of the South.”

James Miles, regional extension agent for southwest Alabama, said the lack of rain is a danger to crops, especially vegetable crops that aren’t being irrigated.

“Those crops are going to really suffer the full affect and probably fail (without irrigation),” Miles said.

Miles said corn is another crop that is at risk, because it requires so much water; this crop will probably suffer losses.

The conditions are also a concern for cattle farmers.

“A lot of them haven’t been able to cut hay, or their pastures have not been able to produce enough growth for a lot of their animals to graze on,” Miles said.

These farmers have had to resort to using winter hay or other forms of feed, Miles said.

Although Goggins said Alabama received 1.45 inches of rain in the month of May, Miles said the last time this area saw significant rain was in April.

“It’s not real common, but it’s a possibility about every five to 10 years we’ll see this type of drought,” Miles said. “In the last few years, say five or seven years, south Alabama and east Alabama have really suffered some drought times.”

And rain is not forthcoming.

“It looks like the high pressure throughout the rest of the week is forecasted to weaken a little bit,” Goggins said, but he added that no rainfall is anticipated, aside from the possibility of isolated thunderstorms in some early afternoons.

Miles said a significant amount of rain is necessary to fix the situation.

“It’s going to take 4-inch plus rains to remedy where we are right now,” Miles said. “Now, the key to that is not just getting the four inches. The ideal drought buster would be, we get those four inches in a slow steady rain.”

According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, Dallas County is labeled as “abnormally dry” in some areas and as experiencing “moderate” drought in others in the report released May 24.

Currently, about 67 percent of Alabama is experiencing conditions from abnormally dry to extreme drought. Last week, only 48 percent of the state was under these conditions, and last year, none of the state was experiencing drought conditions.