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.
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