drought

In light of horrific wildfires, an historic drought and now the destruction wrought by Hurricane Sandy, the political understatement of the year has to be President Barack Obama's recent comment to...

Biologists anticipating serious problems with black bears raiding garbage and breaking into homes due to lack of food because of drought say the situation has been slow to develop at Lake Tahoe and along the Sierra front but that activity is now picking up in some areas.
The Nevada Department of Wildlife has received about 120 bear complaints thus far in 2012, according to bear biologist Carl Lackey.
While the year is shaping up to be a bit busier than 2011, it’s nothing compared to what Lackey originally expected in the wake of a remarkably dry winter.

To understand how utterly broken our society is, how hostile to sacrifice we are and how willfully ignorant we have become, you need only look at the historic drought hammering the heartland - and ...

Drought brings heat and lack of rain, and it might also bring more bears to the basin this season. Last year's mild winter means more cubs in the spring. And with little rain and warm temperatures,...

CARSON CITY — Nevada today affirmed the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s automatic drought disaster declaration, which applies to all 17 Nevada counties.

Douglas Boyle is Nevada's new state climatologist. He will oversee operations of the Nevada State Climate Office, a public-service department in the College of Science at the University of Nevada, Reno.
The state climatologist and the Nevada Climate Office collect, maintain and interpret Nevada’s climate and weather data information, publish a quarterly report and provide leadership on climatic hazards and drought planning in the state through work and consultation with the governor's office and state agencies.

Fire restrictions for the Carson and Bridgeport districts of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest will begin on Monday, June 18. The combination of a particularly dry winter and spring, parched vegetation, lingering drought conditions, increasing daytime temperatures, and recent human-caused fires forced the Forest Service to implement the conditions.

The erratic year-to-year swings in precipitation totals in the Lake Tahoe, Carson City and Reno areas conjures up the word “drought” every couple of years, and this year is no exception. The Nevada State Climate Office at the University of Nevada, Reno, in conjunction with the Nevada Drought Response Committee, announced Thursday a Stage 1 drought (moderate) for six counties and a Stage 2 drought (severe) for 11 counties.
Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada are no strangers to drought, the most famous being the Medieval megadrought lasting from 800 to 1250 A.D. when annual precipitation was less than 60 percent of normal. The Reno-Tahoe region is now about 65 percent of annual normal precipitation for the year, which doesn’t seem like much, but imagine if this were the “norm” each and every year for the next 200 years.

Editor's note: This is the first in a two-part installment.During the second survey of the 2012 water year on Feb. 1, Frank Gehrke, chief of the California Cooperative Snow Survey program, measu...

The U.S. Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit (LTBMU) has approved a project that will reduce wildfire risk to communities on Lake Tahoe's South Shore and restore the health of the area's forests. The South Shore Fuel Reduction and Healthy Forest Restoration Project will thin trees and brush on more than 10,000 acres of national forest system land from the Nevada state line to Cascade Lake.

By John Heil
California’s landscapes are under siege from a host of threats. Catastrophic wildfire, climate change, invasive species and increasing human population put these delicate ecosystems at risk. The U.S. Forest Service has recognized and battled these threats for decades, but recently the agency recognized the need for a more focused approach on Ecological Restoration as the primary goal for all land management actions.

By Cheva Heck
The Forest Service will soon begin removing conifers (cone-bearing trees) from meadow, aspen groves and upland forest areas along Scotts Lake Trail, off Big Meadow Trailhead near Luther Pass on Hwy. 89. The project should not affect access to the trail, but the Forest Service is asking that users remain on the trail at all times. A contractor will use crews with chainsaws for the thinning project, which could begin tomorrow.