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Saturday Morning News

Devestating Weather Patterns Take Toll on Drough-Stricken Regions

Aired June 17, 2000 - 8:15 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Let's take another look now at one of our top stories, the effects of this summer's drought. Homeowners across the country are watching their grass burn up because of the lack of rain and water restrictions. Farmers are watching their crops die in unrelenting heat and there are worries that all of this may trigger price hikes at the supermarket.

Some blame La Nina for the hot, dry conditions and joining us from Washington to talk about it is Douglas Lecomte, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service.

Good morning, Doug.

DOUGLAS LECOMTE, NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE: Good morning.

PHILLIPS: Well, your specialty, of course, is weather. Let's talk about what's been so devastating about the weather patterns.

LECOMTE: OK, let's talk about weather. We had an unusually dry, mild winter in the Midwest and in the early part of the spring and in the southeast and southwestern part of the countries, much, much less rainfall than normal during the winter and also during the spring and the recent high temperatures have just made things worse.

So we have several areas of the country that have had serious problems because of drought. And also in Hawaii, too, by the way, a drought's been going on for more than two years.

PHILLIPS: What's triggered the weather patterns? Do you agree it was la nina?

LECOMTE: Well, I'm not one of those who wants to blame every problem on la nina, but there's no doubt there's a strong connection between la nina and drought in the country that's been shown historically and there's an especially strong connection between La Nina and drought in the winter and spring time in the southern part of the country. And that's certainly been a major factor in where we're seeing drought now and for how long the drought has lasted in the Southeast. We've had a la nina going on now for almost two years and we've had a drought which you could date back to the summer of 1998 in the Southeast.

PHILLIPS: Well, Doug, the reports are saying that there is no end to this drought in sight, specifically in the South. Do you agree with that, and if so, why?

LECOMTE: Oh, no. No. I don't agree to that at all. First of all, la nina is in the process of ending and if you go out far enough into fall, winter and spring we're forecasting normal to above normal rainfall across the Gulf Coast states for that time period. So certainly in the long-term we see better conditions developing. In the very short-term, of course, we've seen some good temporary relief also.

It's sort of in between that we do see some problems. The deficits are so great in the Southeast in particular, it's going to take a long time to get rid of this drought. So we do think the drought, for the most part, will be continuing for the next few months in the Southeast, notwithstanding some temporary periods of respite unless they get a tropical storm going through there. And that's one reason we're optimistic, at least about coastal areas of the Southeast, is that we see an increased chance of tropical activity by late in the summer there.

PHILLIPS: Doug Lecomte, we should have you on staff here as a new weather forecaster.

LECOMTE: Hey, we'll talk about that.

PHILLIPS: Thanks for joining us and we will be talking more about the drought and the weather conditions. Thanks again for being with us.

LECOMTE: OK. You're very welcome.

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