• Record breaking expanse of drought across US

    46.84 percent of the US land area is in various stages of drought, up from 42.8 percent a week ago. Previous records were 45.87 percent in drought on Aug. 26, 2003, and 45.64 percent on Sept. 10, 2002.Looking only at the 48 contiguous states, 55.96 percent of the

  • Iraq is fighting desertification with planting thousands of trees

    Increasingly frequent sandstorms and salinization of the land is one of major environmental problems of Iraq, where decades of conflict have exacted a terrible environmental toll. The country’s environment ministry estimated in 2009 that 39 percent of Iraq’s surface

  • Summer 2012 forecast for Europe

    According to experts from AccuWeeather.com, much of Europe will be slightly warmer than normal this summer with the core of summer heat across southeast Europe into Ukraine. This will result in temperatures closer to normal in far western Europe. The overall

  • Rains swell dried-out Poyang Lake in China

    In January 2012, we were writing about the dried-out beds of Poyang Lake in Jiangxi Province of southeastern China, where drought had shrunk the lake to a fraction of its former area. After a year of poor rainfall, the lake covered less than 188 square kilometers (73

  • Drought hits Spain’s wheat crop

    Spain has faced the driest winter ever recorded. It has raised red flags in Spain, where farmers face the threat of extreme  drought. Grain crops in Spain are suffering after an unusually dry autumn and winter. The amount of rainfall has been just half of normal in

  • Drought hits Angola’s farms

    A drought is threatening Angola’s already modest food production, in a setback for efforts to revive once-vibrant farmlands abandoned during decades of war. The dry season that normally lasts only about three weeks in December has stretched to three months in parts of

  • China is entering the third year of an extreme drought

    Parts of China are entering the third year of an extreme drought that has affected more than 7.8 million people and 4.6 million livestock. More than 2 million are struggling for access to clean drinking water with many having to travel many miles each day just to fill