The Rio Grande Dried Up This Summer In Places We've Never Seen; TX: "Praying For A Hurricane"

[hatrack]

This summer, the Rio Grande disappeared entirely from Santa Elena Canyon in Big Bend National Park, pictured on May 29, 2022. Visitors gawked at the conspicuous absence of the river whose arching path gave the region its name. Credit: Dylan Baddour

This summer, the Rio Grande dried up in places that it never had before. For more than 100 miles through wild and scenic country, its snaking, sandy bed cradled only a series of warm, stagnant pools. In the canyons of Big Bend National Park, visitors gawked at the conspicuous absence of the Great River whose arching path gives this rugged region its name.

Out here in the quiet desert, it’s easy to forget this meek waterway supports 6 million people in two countries. Vast distances hide the relationships at play. Go 150 miles upstream from the canyons of Big Bend, up with Rio Conchos and you’ll find the sprawling orchards of Chihuahua State, Mexico, population 3.7 million. Go 500 miles downstream and you’ll hit the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, with 46 bustling cities and towns, a billion-dollar agricultural sector and 1.3 million people—even more live across the river in Mexico.

Just over a century ago, this was a rolling, sometimes raging waterway, swelling in regular cycles to smash through canyons and swallow landscapes from horizon to horizon as it flows from snowy mountains 1,890 miles to the sea. When this once-mighty river showed its cracking bottom in the distant desert this May, it flashed a critical warning of conflicts and shortages ahead for the growing populations in both Texas and Mexico that depend on its dwindling supply. Indeed, by July the largest reservoir that relies on its flow had surpassed its record low.

EDIT

Just like that, La Junta de los Rios was gone, its northern arm severed, the floods that nursed its wetlands over. The old Rio Grande was broken in two—one river that flowed from the Rockies to El Paso and a second Rio Grande that flows from the Rio Conchos, through Texas to the Gulf. For the century since, the Conchos alone has watered this valley. Mechanical pumps enabled farming without floods. But little by little, the Conchos faltered, too. Mexicans built dams and planted orchards in Chihuahua, as well. This summer, the Conchos stopped running altogether, turning its path through the old Junta de los Rios into a muddy trench. In the town of Redford, a farmer and retired Customs and Border Protection worker named Esteban Mesa peered into the shallow water where his irrigation pump tapped the Rio Grande, 15 miles below the mouth of the Conchos. He said he had never seen it so low.

EDIT


Guadalupe Davila Hinojosa and his son, Luis Antonio Davila Oreste, stand over the valley where their tiny village of Boquillas used to grow crops, pictured on May 28, 2022. Credit: Dylan Baddour

EDIT

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05092022/rio-grande-texas-water-crisis/

[yellowdogintexas]

1. Meanwhile, North Texas has suffered flash flooding 3 times

in Dallas and Fort Worth.

Too bad there isn't a canal running down to the border.

It's beyond strange to hope for a hurricane

[TexasTowelie]

2. Meanwhile, downstream...

US Border Patrol: At least 9 migrants die trying to cross Rio Grande near Eagle Pass
https://democraticunderground.com/107863752

[IbogaProject]

3. Bigger variations and more extremes

The warming climate is like a pot of water coming to a boil, it gets chaotic. And when heavy fast rain falls on dry soil it can't soak in too much. So this is happening around the world. And when it rains we get deadly flash floods, like in Kentucky, Indiana, Rhode Island, and elsewhere. Korea just got 3 Feet of rain yesterday.

[Xoan]

4. So Sad

[GreatShakes66]

5. That's alarming.

Can't imagine the Santa Elena Canyon without the river. South Texas has seen many very dry seasons in recent years.