Destructive natural phenomena are extremely difficult to predict. They can occur at any time, proceed on a different scale, and they are all unique in their own way. Drought is one of such dangerous natural phenomena that can lead to the death of people and the destruction of conditions for their lives. And although drought is developing quite slowly, it may ultimately affect several countries and even entire continents. Drought is a long period of lack of rainfall and the establishment of constantly high air temperature. This natural disaster can last from 4-5 weeks to several months. The effects of drought can be disastrous.
On our planet, especially in places with an arid climate, drought itself, like the dry winds that cause it, are not uncommon. They cause irreparable damage to agriculture. In times of natural disaster in vast territories, the entire crop perished, famine set in, from which millions of the world’s inhabitants died. Desertification of lands and the death of all life on the planet – this is how the danger of drought on a global scale can be formulated.
A similar tendency can be observed in the town of Spring Valley. Meteorologist is warning that a severe drought may hit the city due to the declining amounts of the rainfall. According to experts, the total annual rainfall in the given location has dropped from an average of 30 to 18 inches. I agree that the underlying statistics are disturbing and should be taken seriously because, according to the normal distribution, there is only a 6.6% chance of rainfall being lower or equal to 18 inches.
The normal distribution, also called the Gaussian distribution, is the probability distribution, which plays a crucial role in many fields of knowledge, especially in physics. A physical quantity obeys a normal distribution when it is affected by a huge number of random noises. It is clear that such a situation is prevalent, so it can be said that of all the distributions in nature, it is the normal distribution that most often occurs – this is where one of its names came from.
The normal distribution depends on two parameters – displacement and scale, that is, from a mathematical point of view, it is not one distribution, but their whole family. The parameter values correspond to the mean or mathematical expectation and the scatter or standard deviation. Standard normal distribution is a normal distribution with a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1. The observed drop in the rainfall is severe because the standard deviation, which is considered normal, is 8 inches. Therefore, even if the average is 30 inches, but the rainfall of 22 inches to 38 inches is considered to be within the optimal range according to statistical definitions.
In conclusion, the statistical values presented by the meteorologist should be taken seriously, because the values are not within the normal deviation. Therefore, it is critical to note that terrible epidemics can arise from a lack of water. Hot weather and the lack of rain can cause severe fires that destroy forests, fields with crops, housing people. Peat fires often occur, which are hazardous to human health due to their poisonous effect. To combat a brutal natural disaster, a person draws on all the potential available. Knowing how to deal with drought can reduce its impact and make them less destructive and destructive. Predicting the risk of a phenomenon is facilitated by instruments and statistical data analysis that measure the probability of drought.