Word: drought
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...blaze that swept through the rural community of Sage, 80 miles from San Diego, with unseasonal intensity late last month, blackening more than 3,500 acres. Fire fighters this time were able to contain the flames, but next time they may not be so lucky. A five-year drought has left this always arid region even dryer than usual, and when the hot Santa Ana winds start to blow off the desert in September, it could take only a spark to set off fires that will be much more difficult to control...
...knows when the drought will end. Scientists believe this dry spell, which has plagued a broad swath of the West since 1999, is more typical of the region than its 60 million inhabitants would care to admit. As Charles Ester, chief hydrologist for Arizona's Salt River Project, a major provider of water and electricity, puts it, "What we took as a period of normal rainfall in the past century was actually a period of abundance...
...swimming pools and hot tubs, not to mention such modern necessities as dishwashers and flush toilets and the hydropower that keeps refrigerators and home computers humming. Caught off guard, political leaders and water-resource managers have been turning to scientists for help. What do researchers know about patterns of drought in North America? What do they think occurred in the mid-1990s when a big chunk of the West abruptly veered from wet to dry? And do they believe that the current shortfall of precipitation is just a temporary dry spell or an ominous realignment of the earth's climate...
...Regularly beset by drought and famine, Ethiopia is known more for emergency food rations than its own gastronomic fare. Yet the country has one of the most diverse and mouth-watering cuisines in Africa. A great place to sample the range of dishes is the Fasika National Restaurant, tel: (251) 1 509 912, located in a maze of dusty side streets off Bole Road in the capital, Addis Ababa. The food is served on injera, a large piece of flat bread made from tef, a grain unique to the region. Injera may look like foam rubber, but its slightly sour...
...ASIA INDIA: Stricken by flood and drought, the subcontinent desperately needs better ways to manage water...