| Wednesday, 19 April 2023 |
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Good morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],
Perhaps you remember one or more flash floods from last year—in Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, or West Bengal. Or maybe the devastating flood in Pakistan, which killed over 1,700 people and is estimated to have been among the costliest natural disasters in recorded history, causing economic losses of around US$40 billion.
But few of us, I think, have seen or heard about flash droughts.
Let me paint you a picture.
You’re a farmer at sunset, standing at the edge of your fields. Your crops are coming along fine. The rains are a little overdue, but you have hope. Then, the sun turns your enemy. It gets hot over the next few days—very hot. The rains never come, so the soil loses all moisture.
Just a month has passed since that hopeful sunset, but you gaze out at those very same fields and what you see now are dried up husks and cracked soil.
Drought. In a matter of weeks.
