Posted: Fri, 8 Jul 2011 09:57 AM - 9,937 Readers

By: John Honore

Meteorologist, climatologists and government agency heads from all over the region gathered in Austin on Thursday to talk about one of the worst droughts to ever hit the South-Central part of the United States.

"As per the Texas State Climatologist, this drought is currently the third worst on record, behind only the summer of 1956 and the summer of 1918," said Victor Murphy, climate service program director for the Southern Region of the National Weather Service.

The phenomenon known as La Nina, unusually cool waters of the Pacific Coast of South America that cause weather patterns that shut down rain across the South-Central United States, can only be partially blamed, according to scientists who gathered at the conference.

Marty Hoerling, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Lab, said the drought could not be blamed on climate change.

"Quite frankly, we don't know why this particular 9-month period has been so dry, " Hoerling said.

Hoerling said that this type of drought likely occurs naturally in the region even though it seems unprecedented.

"One hundred years of climate data doesn't tell us everything about what climate can do in your own back yard," Hoerling said.

Numerous government agency heads from all over the region were on hand to determine how best to react to a drought of this nature.

"We're using this as a watershed point, in a way, to really get our hands around what it takes to make sure you're resilient to a drought of this type," Hoerling said.

"Anything that an agency might use as a benchmark to make changes in their behavior," said David Brown, NOAA's southern regional climate services director.