Its been awhile here since we had a good rain.
All the grass is going orangey.
Its predicted in the bible that the first 3 and a half years of the tribulation there will be NO rain.
Okay, if this happens, how long before we run out of food?
Before the earth is a desert?
I don’t know where you live, but we’ve had a lot of rain the past couple of weeks. We were 3" in the hole, and I think now there is no drought anymore. Don’t fear about the whole earth becoming a desert. Maybe where you live, but that’s not the whole world.
The sun shining on the world’s oceans is the engine that drives the weather. For all rainfall everywhere in the world to stop, you’d have to find some way to either get rid of all the water in all the oceans (shoot it into outer space?), or make the sun stop shining, in which case we’d have other things to worry about besides drought (I’m pretty sure there’s a GQ thread around somewhere on the subject of “if the sun went out, how long would we have?”)
So don’t worry. The Book of Revelations isn’t the Straight Dope, not just yet. 
I believe the information sought is not whether or not the appocalypse is upon us, but how long the world would survive without rainfall.
I wish I could begin to answer it, but I have no idea. Just wanted to clarify.
Yes bub, thats exactly what I wanted to know.
Really, Duck?
Its not possible to stop the rain becasue we have oceans?
Call me silly, but i didn’t realize that.
You mena theres no seven-headed beast either?
Well, either you’d have to get rid of all the oceans, or else arrange to have the sun stop shining on them. It’s the combination that makes for world-wide rainfall.
Or you could freeze everything solid. Does that count as “drought”?
Well, in my part of the world a period of three years with no significant rainfall isn’t unheard of. We’ve been through at least two periods in the past 200 years with no significant rainfall for in excess of 4 years. No significant rainfall means no runoff and falls that do little to promote plant growth.
Under these conditions people, cattle sheep, trees and various other life-forms continue to live, if not thrive. So if we ignore the drastic effects on the worlds climate (which we’ll have to) three years without rain would be devestating to wetter areas but in semi-arid and arid regions life would certainly continue. Bear in mind Revelations was written primarily for people in the semi-arid and desert regions of the middle-east, so the concept of a three year drought would have been scary, but not the doomsday scenario it is to people in more humid regions. It’s quite possible that such droughts have occured there in the past.
If you wanted to arrange a three year drought without blocking out the suyn or snap-freezing the world you could simply arrange to have it all fall in the ocean. See, much simpler.