This April will mark the fifth anniversary of Georgia’s Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network, part of a non-profit network of volunteer precipitation observers across the U.S. who provide daily rainfall information to the public.

Beets are producing “sweet” results with researchers at the University of Georgia.

Adapting to unpredictable weather is part of Lamar Black’s job as a farmer in Jenkins County, Ga. Black grows cotton, corn and peanuts on more than 400 acres, so each year he plans for and adjusts to extreme temperatures and rain, or lack thereof.

Georgia experienced a much warmer than usual December. Temperatures were three to six degrees above normal across the state. Rainfall totals ranged from over eight inches in the northern regions of the state to less than an inch along the coast.

The current drought in Georgia has caused significant problems for farmers in central Georgia and other areas of the state, but a lack of impact on the state’s larger cities and drinking water supplies has kept it off most Georgians’ radar.

Agriculture uses about 70 percent of the world’s fresh water supply, but a growing population’s increasing demand for drinking water means farmers need to learn how to do more with less water.

While the beginning of December has felt more like spring, Georgia experienced colder and much drier than normal conditions during November.

Temperatures in Georgia were within one degree of normal across the state in October. Rainfall continued to be light across most of the state, continuing a trend from a dry September. A narrow band stretching from Columbus to the northeast mountains was the only area of the state that received higher than normal rainfall.

Daniel Hillel, the 2012 World Food Prize Laureate and a 1950 graduate of the University of Georgia, spent the better part of his career perfecting arid- land farming methods in Israel and sharing them with farmers across the Middle East, Africa and parts of Asia. On Nov. 8, Hillel will return to Athens to deliver the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences’ 2012 D.W. Brooks Lecture at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education.