{"id":745,"date":"2012-02-04T16:22:18","date_gmt":"2012-02-04T22:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/gazette\/2012\/02\/04\/120204-comanchespringsupdate\/"},"modified":"2024-09-16T18:30:03","modified_gmt":"2024-09-16T23:30:03","slug":"120204-comanchespringsupdate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2012\/02\/04\/120204-comanchespringsupdate\/","title":{"rendered":"Comanche Springs 2012: Drought Update"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Last February, I posted <a href=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2011\/02\/25\/110225_comanchesprings\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a series of photos and a video of the vigorous flow of water from Comanche Springs<\/a> in Fort Stockton, Texas. You might want to take a moment and refresh your memory because this update won&#8217;t be as meaningful without the comparison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fort Stockton has averaged about 14&#8243; of precipitation each year for the last 70 years, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.srh.weather.gov\/maf\/?n=cli_maf_coop_annprecip_fort_stockton\">according to the National Weather Service<\/a>. 2010 was a wetter-than-normal year and the region recorded about 17&#8243; of rainfall. 2011 was a stark contrast, as the rainfall total dropped off to a depressing 2.84&#8243;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so we see what seems to be a logical link between a severe drought and the following photos that I captured yesterday and that document the fact that Comanche Springs is, well, dry. (Click on each photo to pop up a bigger version; use the arrows to move through the collection.) Most of the photos below are updates to their counterparts in the above-linked post. I didn&#8217;t bother with any videos since a movie of a dry springbed is fairly non-dramatic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/comanchesprings2012\/01.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/comanchesprings2012\/01-t.jpg\" alt=\"Photo\"\/><\/a>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/comanchesprings2012\/02.jpg\"  data-rel=\"lightbox-image-1\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/comanchesprings2012\/02-t.jpg\" alt=\"Photo\"\/><\/a><br>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/comanchesprings2012\/03.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-2\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/comanchesprings2012\/03-t.jpg\" alt=\"Photo\"\/><\/a>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/comanchesprings2012\/04.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-3\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/comanchesprings2012\/04-t.jpg\" alt=\"Photo\"\/><\/a><br>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/comanchesprings2012\/05.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-4\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/comanchesprings2012\/05-t.jpg\" alt=\"Photo\"\/><\/a>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/comanchesprings2012\/06.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-5\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/comanchesprings2012\/06-t.jpg\" alt=\"Photo\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"center\">I decided to undertake this update because the folks who are proposing to pump millions of gallons of water each day from the aquifer that feeds this spring and sell it to Midland have argued that the water table is drought-resistant, if not downright drought-proof. I wouldn&#8217;t attempt to refute that argument based on a few photos taken at a particular point in time, but the pictures do seem to make the argument less compelling than it might otherwise be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last February, I posted a series of photos and a video of the vigorous flow of water from Comanche Springs in Fort Stockton, Texas. You might want to take a moment and refresh your memory because this update won&#8217;t be as meaningful without the comparison. Fort Stockton has averaged about 14&#8243; of precipitation each year&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2012\/02\/04\/120204-comanchespringsupdate\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Comanche Springs 2012: Drought Update<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","category-west-texas","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=745"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14207,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745\/revisions\/14207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}