The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, July 28, 1988, Image 3
Thursday, July 28, 1988/The Battalion/Page 3 State and Local t unde, limatologist: Drought conditions less severe than others this century By Mercedes Salinas Reporter u | stale Climatologist John F. Grif- st [ ai Bths said the current drought in a 8 ai| iTe> .is is just a small dry spell t0 )' Ripared to droughts in the ged ™lecords of the National ij|ather Service show that at least s wouli lL ’| l one serious drought has plagued ■ My "i pits of Texas every decade this e d Hnififcntury. result fiflie most costly and devastat- B drought to hit Texas in mod- H history was the massive ywasJBught that damaged every re- a fe' Bn of the state in the 1950s. 1 matteiMI'he 50s drought was the worst ie, bull from the stand point of intensity, tim e „ las' coverage and persistence, |] , Griffiths, an A&M professor of meteorology, said. it mantB)r. William A. Dugas, whose ove Dei,research at the Texas Agricultu- get herM Experiment Station in Temple lead,, f 0011565 on water used by crops Hd rangelands, also has helped ■ ' Bek. Texas droughts this cen- Jorajrjl editor Xeh tht 195C intensity of droughts since 1950s has not been as strong and they have been of shorter du ration, Dugas said. massive searing heat wave in i u/ii| 1180 set in motion a severe > rlri drought that scorched most of MjV the state. By 1984 the drought '''V had brought severe problems to central and southern portions of the state. ■Weather service records show fin wvt A&M study may help forecasters make more accurate predictions By Gina Rumore Reporter A Texas A&M rainfall study may result in better forecasts of precipitation on a monthly basis, allowing for better planning during dry spells. Dr. Steven Lyons, a forecasting specialist at A&M, said he hopes the study will provide much more reliable information, such as predicting a subsequent month’s precipitation as above or below normal in Texas. Lyons said such information could allow individuals to plan ahead. “If it’s already dry and farmers are hurting for water and they need to irrigate soon, the officials can tell them if it will be dry for another month,” Lyons said. “Then the farmers know to go ahead and irrigate.” Lyons said the accuracy and reliability of the forcast is critical because if the officials cannot confidently pre dict rainfall conditions, the information will not help them. Lyons said he had analyzed rainfall data from 50 sta tions around Texas from 1923 to 1984 and the data was put into a computer that gave the dominant rainfall patterns in the state. “What I found was that there are no dominant cy cles,” Lyons said. “We may know the past rainfall pat terns fairly readily for each season and we may know how they have changed in the past, but there is no sys tematic change to it.” Lyons said if prediction of rainfall cannot be ob tained, the research could at least be used to show why there are wet and dry months. “I don’t think we’ll ever be able to say, ‘It looks like the next month will be 2.2 inches below or above nor mal,’ ” Lyons said. “And it doesn’t look like we’ll be able to predict many months in advance but the study does tell us that when March, April, May, June and the win ter months are dry, such as this year, it is not common.” Lyons said the prediction of whether next month’s rainfall will be above or below normal is well within reach, but trying to determine how wet or dry will be much harder. the droughts of the 1950s first be gan in the Lower Rio Grande Val ley in the late spring of 1949. They then plagued western por tions of the state several months later and had become severe over the remainder of the state by 1956. In the spring of 1957, the rains finally came and erased some of the damage. Even though there were some steady soaking rains between Feb ruary and April 1957, there were many dead mesquite trees left standing as grim reminders of the state’s most devastating drought of this century. Perhaps because of media ad vancements and the publicity of droughts during the summer months our judgment of drought has changed, Griffiths said. “Texas has experienced droughts in the 80s but not any where near the intensity of those in the 50s, which we can only re call in our memory,” Griffiths said. “As a state we are hurting this summer but we are not ag onizing. We’ve been lucky.” Appeals court says murder defendants can’t question jury NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that capital murder de fendants do not have a constitutional right to question prospective jurors about their understanding of Texas parole laws. The full court ruled 11-3 against Leon Rutherford King, who con tended that a Texas state court had violated his sixth and 14th amend ment rights by refusing to allow him to question the jurors or educate them concerning their knowledge of Texas parole laws. King and Allen Ray Carter kid napped Michael Clayton Under wood and his girlfriend, who was not identified, at gunpoint 10 years ago in Houston. Court records show the men forced Underwood’s girlfriend to watch while King beat Under wood’s head with a shotgun butt un til it looked like a “broken egg.” For nearly five hours after mur dering Underwood, King and Car ter repeatedly raped and sodomized their female hostage, threatened her life and laughed at having made her observe the execution of her “old man,” according to court docu ments. King told the jury during the pun ishment phase of his second trial that he wanted the death penality. In his petition to the 5th Circuit, King said that if the jury harbored misconceptions about Texas law. for instance, an erroneous belief that a capital murder defendant may be come eligible for parole in seven to 10 years, they will be biased toward imposing the death penalty. The federal appeals court said King not only had no constitutional right to question the jurors before sentencing, but that in light of his crime and conduct during his trial, it would not have changed his sen tence. “King told the jury that he ex pected to receive the death penalty, admitted that he deserved it, and re quested that it be imposed,” Judge Edith H. Jones wrote in the majority opinion. “Any subliminal effect of a juror’s impressions concerning parole must surely be subordinated to the impact of this testimony. “Add to this the determinedly sa distic nature of the crime and asso ciated events, and we find it impossi ble to think that a jury would have somehow believed King less danger ous to society ... in 20 years than he would be if paroled in seven to 10,” Jones wrote. In writing the dissenting opinion, Judge Alvin B. Rubin said that Leon Rutherford King had been proved beyond reasonable doubt to be a sav age criminal, but that did not keep him from being entitled to due proc ess in sentencing. sA&M regents award $14 million in construction contracts By Andrea Halbert Reporter [he Texas A&M Board of Regents ’l^tred the way for the construction of five lewj dormitories, a parking garage and ithfr construction projects when it warded contracts worth $14 million earlier his month. Construction will begin next month on five new modular dormitories provided for in a $9.5 million contract. These residence halls will house A&M students in Fall 1989, said General Wesley Peel, vice chancellor for Facilities Planning and Construction. The new halls should be ready by Sep tember 1989, he said. One of the halls will be next to the other modular halls near Sbisa, and four new halls will be built in the parking lot south of the Commons, Peel said. He said a 2,000-space parking garage will be built near the Commons to provide parking spaces for the 1,000 new hall resi dents and to make up for 400 parking spaces in the Commons parking lot that will be lost as a result of the construction. The regents awarded a contract for pre liminary design work on a 2,000-space parking garage to be located adjacent to the Memorial Student Center. Peel said the parking garage is part of the MSC expan sion planned for next year. Other contracts awarded at the July 18 Board meeting include construction of fence segments on Texas Avenue to mark campus boundaries, purchase of equipment for a new satellite utility plant and purchase of furnishings for renovation of the Chem istry Building. NEW! NEW! BUY ONE, GET ONE FREE! Thick, crispy crust loaded with cheese (and your choice of toppings). All baked up fresh in a square deep dish pan. 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