Northeast Drought Status

Improvement for Some, Deterioration for Others
There was a mix of improvement and deterioration this week as some areas saw heavy rainfall while other areas missed out. For instance, localized rainfall amounts of over 2 inches chipped away at drought and abnormal dryness in a strip from southeastern Maryland to southeastern Massachusetts. Meanwhile, many parts of the Northeast saw less than an inch of precipitation, leading to the expansion of drought and abnormal dryness in places like central Maryland and central West Virginia. Some sites along the Interstate 95 corridor in the Mid-Atlantic continues to see long-term precipitation deficits fueled by an exceptionally dry fall and made worse by a drier-than-normal winter. Deficits for the September 1 and March 18 period include 7.14 below normal (6.59 inches last week) in Washington, D.C., 10.67 inches below normal (9.99 inches last week) in Baltimore, 11.05 inches below normal (11.04 inches last week) in Wilmington, 10.23 inches below normal (10.72 inches last week) in Philadelphia, and 10.12 inches below normal (9.92 inches last week) in Newark.

• Extreme (D3) drought contracted slightly in southern New Jersey.
• Severe (D2) drought shrank in southern New Jersey and Delaware but expanded in southeastern New York, northern New Jersey, and central Maryland.
• Moderate (D1) drought eased in spots along a path from southeastern Maryland to southeastern Massachusetts.
• Abnormal dryness (D0) was erased in parts of Vermont, New York, and Pennsylvania, but grew in West Virginia.
• Record-low streamflow was present in places like central Maryland, southeastern Pennsylvania, and southern New Jersey.
• Record low groundwater levels were found in eight out of the 12 Northeast states, particularly in the region’s southeastern corner.
• Reservoir levels in New Jersey remained below or near average.
• There was an increased fire risk in parts of the Mid-Atlantic, where some counties and municipalities enacted burn bans.
• The outlooks for March 25 to April 2 call for near- or above-normal precipitation along with below- or near-normal temperatures, conditions that could lead to some improvement in areas that see sufficient precipitation.
• More precipitation will be needed to offset increasing evapotranspiration rates as we get further into spring.

The NRCC’s full weekly drought update can be found here.

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