Public Health & Recreation

Recent Rains Unlikely to Pull Northeast Out of Drought Conditions

Share

Dry conditions in New England resulted in a number of wildfires in the fall. (istock)

Did last week’s much-needed rain help ease the drought conditions in Rhode Island and the Northeast?

Sort of, according to Sylvia Reeves, Northeast regional drought information coordinator for the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS).

“It will mute our fire risk,” Reeves said. “It will give our surface soil and forest duff a little bit of moisture before freezing. But it’s not going to put a dent” in what she described as a “hydro-drought,” which affects the water supply. “If there’s a deficit of 6-9 inches, 2 inches of rain doesn’t get you to back to normal.”

Reeves noted a major area of concern is the water levels in streams and reservoirs.

“We’ve been watching river systems go dry, dramatically impacting industry and the environment in certain areas,” she said. “Our river systems, stream systems, people’s wells are not getting the recharge that they need to get in early season winter.”

Reeves said the groundwater reserves haven’t been recharged by winter precipitation over the past two years as snowfalls have decreased. She said NIDIS is keeping an eye on the area’s reservoirs, including the Wachusett and Quabbin reservoirs in Massachusetts, adding that the water supply is “at concerning levels in terms of where they should be normally at this time of year.”

According to NOAA’s drought tracking system, there are 1.1 million Rhode Island residents living in areas of drought at the moment. October was the sixth driest on record since 1895, with 0.92 inches of total precipitation, 2.58 inches less than normal.

“There are various ways to define drought and different types of drought, but the American Meteorological Society defines it as ‘a period of abnormally dry weather sufficiently long enough to cause serious hydrological imbalance,’” said Samantha Borisoff, a climatologist in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Science at the Northeast Regional Climate Center (NRCC) at Cornell University in New York.

Borisoff said, based on the U.S. Drought Monitor for Nov. 21, Rhode Island is indeed in a drought, with levels ranging from D3 (extreme) to D2 (severe) to D1 (moderate).

“Most of Rhode Island falls into the moderate drought category, while part of northern Rhode Island is in severe drought and part of eastern Rhode Island is abnormally dry,” Borisoff said. “Providence is lacking 7.70 inches of precipitation between Sept. 1 and Nov. 18 [its second driest such period since its records began in 1905], with impacts such as record- to near-record low streamflow, reduced groundwater levels, and limited soil moisture.”

The Northeast frequently experiences flash droughts — the rapid onset of intense dry periods that can follow a period of normal to above-normal precipitation, Reeves said. While these flash droughts may last only two to six months, they can have profound impacts, resulting in agricultural losses, shortages in public water supplies, and very low streamflows.

“In September, we went three to four weeks without precipitation,” Reeves said. “We got lucky that this drought is hitting after the crops have been harvested. Sometimes agriculture is hit during planting seasons, or during summer, and we see drought disaster declarations. Because it came after the agricultural growing season, it didn’t impact most crops … we had fall … leaves fell on the dry ground.”

“The lower foot of duff in forests was so tinder-dry anything could set it off. Conditions were ripe” for the record-setting wildfires in New England and New York during the fall, she added. “That is why this drought is so impactful for the Northeast. We’re seeing incidental reports of bird migrations that have changed [because] the birds are seeking water and not finding it,” along with “reports of streams and rivers that normally carry fish populations that the drought is affecting.”

Despite the recent rain, the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center’s 8-14-day outlooks are not encouraging for long-term drought relief. New England is likely to have near-normal precipitation, which is not likely to be sufficient for drought elimination. Warmer-than-normal temperatures also are predicted. 

Warmer temperatures mean water is drawn out of trees and the ground, Reeves said.

“If we don’t get significant snowfalls between now and December, before everything freezes solid, we won’t be able to replenish our stream systems and our groundwater,” Reeves said.

Any rain that falls will likely not be enough to stem the effects of the drought, Borisoff said. And the way it falls is also important, she said.

“Heavy rainfall in a short period of time is mostly going to run off vs. a slow, steady rainfall over a day or two that could soak into the ground,” she said.

Join the Discussion

View Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Your support keeps our reporters on the environmental beat.

Reader support is at the core of our nonprofit news model. Together, we can keep the environment in the headlines.

cookie