[rhr1956]

Here on Lake Ray Hubbard we are needing a little rain asap. This is a photo of my friend's 50' motorsailer. The next picture shows the cribbing that he bolted to the dock to give the boat something to "lean" on.

 

[Skipper Jer]

No rain because all the water is bottled up in plastic containers and in swimming pools.
The good thing is your friend can do the bottom and not have to pay haul out fees.

 

[rhr1956]

This Texas drought thing is getting old. The lakes statewide are in bad shape. Our lake is down 9 feet now. The North Texas Water authority has had us at stage 3 (can only water lawns 2 days a month) for so long the the water in the pipelines is becoming stagnant. This week they lifted the restrictions and told us to water more often to get the pipelines freshened up.

 

[Skipper Jer]

Oh and I forgot about the ugly bags of mostly water. Now there are 7 billion walking around. Guesstimate each to weigh 120 pounds, Mayo clinc says 60 percent is water so, 7 billion times 120 pounds times 60 percent divided by 8.3 pounds per gallon equals about 60 billion gallons of water walking around on earth.

People who watch Star Trek will understand the reference of ugly bags of water.

 

[Rhapsody-NS27]

Oh and I forgot about the ugly bags of mostly water. Now there are 7 billion walking around. Guesstimate each to weigh 120 pounds, Mayo clinc says 60 percent is water so, 7 billion times 120 pounds times 60 percent divided by 8.3 pounds per gallon equals about 60 billion gallons of water walking around on earth.

People who watch Star Trek will understand the reference of ugly bags of water.

I got that Star Trek reference right away.

There's plenty of water around, just has too much salt in it.

How about desalinating plants to make fresh water to restock the lakes? I've wondered if that would be a viable option.

 

[StormBay]

A few interesting facts about water I pulled from the web.

Each day the sun evaporates 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) tons or around 240 trillion gallons of water.

Showers use 9 gallons of water per minute.

A bath requires 30 to 50 gallons.

When ground water is contaminated it may remain that way for several thousand years.

It takes 120 gallons of water to produce an egg.

A hot water faucet that leaks 60 drops per minute can waste 192 gallons of water and 48 kwhrs of electricity per month.

Human blood is 83% water. Human bones are 25% water.

Running the tap waiting for water to get hot or cold can waste 5 gallons per minute.

Saltwater is 97% of water on earth. Three percent is freshwater. Most of the freshwater stored on the earth is frozen in glaciers.

The earth's surface is about 80% water. That is about 320,000,000,000,000 (363 trillion) gallons of water.

Watermelons is 93% water.

"Water" was the first word that Helen Keller learned. "Water was the last word spoken by President Ulysses S. Grant.

In some deserts, rain is so uncommon that the natives to not have a word for it.

Over 42,000 gallons of water are needed to grow and prepare the food for a typical Thanksgiving dinner for eight in the United States. This is enough to fill a 30 by 50 foot swimming pool.

People in the United States use as much as 700,000,00,000 (700 billion) gallons of water each day.

Heating water is the second largest energy user in the home.

In some countries law requires solar heating of water for domestic uses.

The koala bear and the desert rat do not drink water.

In one glass of water, there are about 8,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (8 septillion water molecules.

In a one hundred year period, a water molecule spends 98 years in the ocean, 20 months as ice, about 2 weeks in lakes and rivers, and less than a week in the atmosphere.

Poor quality drinking water kills the equivalent of 20 jumbo jets filled with children every day.

A corn plant needs 54 gallons per season.

A milk cow needs 15 gallons per day or 5,475 gallons per year.

A horse needs 10 gallons per day or 3,650 gallons per year.

A hog needs 4 gallons per day or 1,500 gallons per year.

An acre of sugar beets consumptively uses 651,702 gallons season

An acre of alfalfa needs 488,776 gallons per season in Colorado and 684,240 gallons in New Mexico.

One bail of hay requires 17,000 gallons.

 

[Minnewaska]

I do sympathize, but you just can't hold back Mother Nature. The Earth has been covered in ice, twice, IIRC. Things change. It may suck, but it isn't a new concept. Goodness, the entire North American continent, let alone Texas, wasn't always here. Totally futile to try to keep everything exactly the same forever, when our concept of forever is a grain of sand on the beach.

 

[Puddin'_Tain]

...
There's plenty of water around, just has too much salt in it.

How about desalinating plants to make fresh water to restock the lakes? I've wondered if that would be a viable option.

Sure, if you want to accelerate global climate change by burning fossil fuel to run your desalination plant(s).

 

[Minnesail]

I wish we could send you some of ours, we've got plenty here in Minnesota. The little lake I'm on was up about 8' earlier this summer.

Now that I think about it we do send our water south, but to Louisiana not Texas. I'm not sure you'd want it, it's pretty f'ing disgusting by the time it gets down there. (Sorry about the Gulf dead zone, but do you want cheap corn or not?!)

 

[Azzarac]

A hot water faucet that leaks 60 drops per minute can waste 192 gallons of water

Water can not be wasted. There is just as much water on earth now as there was a million years ago, it just gets redistributed. In that regard though, it certainly sucks when it isn't sufficiently distributed to your local lakes!

 

[manatee]

I got that Star Trek reference right away.

There's plenty of water around, just has too much salt in it.

How about desalinating plants to make fresh water to restock the lakes? I've wondered if that would be a viable option.

This won't help Texas (sorry rhr1956), but it is interesting:
Cheap Drinking Water From The Sun, Aided By A Pop Of Pencil Shavings : NPR

 

[killarney_sailor]

I get the impression that what is causing the problem (too dry in some places and too wet in others) is a blockage in the normal movement of the jet streams (not the speed of the streams but their position). Normally these large waves move slowly eastward but for the last year or so they have been pretty stationary. The result is that whatever weather you are getting you keep getting since the streams keep bringing the same stuff. Where we are in southern Ontario it meant a very, very cold winter and a cool, rainy summer, while you and California are getting drought conditions. There is a large, stable, dry air mass in the southern part of the North Atlantic that is killing off tropical cyclonic activity before it really gets going. I would imagine that people in Texas would not mind a tropical storm bringing six inches of rain, but that seems unlikely this year.

Don't want to start a pointless, political bunfight since it is a scientific question rather than a political one, but I get a sense that this is being driven by global warming. Whether it will continue I don't know, but it does have some devastating possibilities.

 

[scratchee]

I got that Star Trek reference right away.

I should hope so...you played Wesley Crusher right?

 

[goat]

A few interesting facts about water I pulled from the web.

Each day the sun evaporates 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) tons or around 240 trillion gallons of water.

Showers use 9 gallons of water per minute.

A bath requires 30 to 50 gallons.

When ground water is contaminated it may remain that way for several thousand years.

It takes 120 gallons of water to produce an egg.

A hot water faucet that leaks 60 drops per minute can waste 192 gallons of water and 48 kwhrs of electricity per month.

Human blood is 83% water. Human bones are 25% water.

Running the tap waiting for water to get hot or cold can waste 5 gallons per minute.

Saltwater is 97% of water on earth. Three percent is freshwater. Most of the freshwater stored on the earth is frozen in glaciers.

The earth's surface is about 80% water. That is about 320,000,000,000,000 (363 trillion) gallons of water.

Watermelons is 93% water.

"Water" was the first word that Helen Keller learned. "Water was the last word spoken by President Ulysses S. Grant.

In some deserts, rain is so uncommon that the natives to not have a word for it.

Over 42,000 gallons of water are needed to grow and prepare the food for a typical Thanksgiving dinner for eight in the United States. This is enough to fill a 30 by 50 foot swimming pool.

People in the United States use as much as 700,000,00,000 (700 billion) gallons of water each day.

Heating water is the second largest energy user in the home.

In some countries law requires solar heating of water for domestic uses.

The koala bear and the desert rat do not drink water.

In one glass of water, there are about 8,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (8 septillion water molecules.

In a one hundred year period, a water molecule spends 98 years in the ocean, 20 months as ice, about 2 weeks in lakes and rivers, and less than a week in the atmosphere.

Poor quality drinking water kills the equivalent of 20 jumbo jets filled with children every day.

A corn plant needs 54 gallons per season.

A milk cow needs 15 gallons per day or 5,475 gallons per year.

A horse needs 10 gallons per day or 3,650 gallons per year.

A hog needs 4 gallons per day or 1,500 gallons per year.

An acre of sugar beets consumptively uses 651,702 gallons season

An acre of alfalfa needs 488,776 gallons per season in Colorado and 684,240 gallons in New Mexico.

One bail of hay requires 17,000 gallons.