Drought: A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

 

In 1986, we were told in late spring that we were going to be “in drought” that summer, so “Don’t water your lawns or wash your cars.”

I bought that story, not realizing that Oregon declares drought if there might be insufficient snowpack to water the city because of a warm, wet winter.  A foggy winter, which is dry after the sun burns through the fog, also triggers a drought forecast, as fog in the valleys doesn’t contribute to snowpack.  1985-1986 was a foggy winter, with fogs that lasted for weeks.^*

We had 103 days without rain that summer.  I was not surprised, as a drought had been declared. 

I left Grants Pass in the fall of 1986 and didn’t know, until the Daily Courier in 2018 published a list of years close to 100 days without rain, that 1987 was also a drought year, with 97 days without rain.

I eventually realized that a drought declaration before the fact is a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Rivers depend on springs more than snowpack to keep them running, as we could see every time we’ve had a summer without rain in the last 20 years.  Springs depend on the water that is pushed out of the mantle of the earth; they don’t depend upon snowpack.

 

*  Eager: The surprising, secret life of BEAVERS and why they MATTER, Ben Goldfarb, “drought, wet” pgs 100-101. Published 2018.

 

10-15-2025 2-minute Speech to Grants Pass City Council

Published at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com and shared on Facebook and Nextdoor

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 Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener      541-955-9040           rycke@gardener.com