PERRIN -- Water managers are eyeing their gauges, farmers are watching wheat fields whither, ranchers are recalculating their herd numbers and city dwellers are dragging out their sprinklers again as drought rapidly intensifies across Texas.
A new federal survey shows the dreaded "d-word" is worming its way back as rainfall deficits mount and soil moisture, stream flows and water reserves quickly decline.
Ninety-four percent of Texas is now abnormally dry, 54 percent is stuck in severe drought and 25 percent is mired in the extreme category, up 10 percent from one week ago, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor released Thursday.
For now, one year after a record Texas drought caused $7.62 billion in agricultural losses, 6 million acres of winter wheat are the biggest concern. Forty to 45 percent of the crop is rated poor to very poor, a 15-point jump from last week, the U.S. Drought Monitor reported.
"Drought is rearing its ugly head again. Things are not too shiny around the state. The wheat crop is beginning to pucker up pretty good," said Travis Miller, a drought expert for the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service.
In what should be a green field of wheat in the ranchlands 15 miles north of Mineral Wells, Darrell Francis kicks bone-dry bare dirt and fingers a stunted clump of wheat, which has barely rooted two months after it was planted.
"If it weren't for the dew it would all be gone. We're just sitting here waiting and hoping it's going to rain," the 71-year-old rancher said as he surveyed hundreds of acres of sparse wheat fields that are dotted with dried up or depleted stock tanks and bordered by parched pastures of native grasses.
And that's after battling a plague of grasshoppers this summer.
"There's not much to eat out there. I remember the drought in the 1950s and I think we are in the same situation," said Francis, whose boot-level view mirrors the pessimistic assessment of Texas state climatologist John Nielsen Gammon.
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