For the last month and a half, New York and New Jersey have been in a heavy drought which has exacerbated wildfires across the states. Now, with some rain over the past few weeks, the wildfires have quieted down, but the drought remains.
New Jersey counties have experienced a rainfall deficit of nine to 12 inches in the past three months. In order to get get over with the drought the rain does not need to come all at once, but rather needs to fall over an extended period of time.
New Jersey State Climatologist, David Robinson, believes that New Jersey needs rainfall for several months that is above average to help the streams, rivers, reservoirs and aquifers to be replenished. All of New Jersey’s resources have been struggling from the pattern of long periods of unusually warm weather and lack of rainfall or snow.
Michael Silva, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s main forecast office in New Jersey, agrees with that statement and believes that multiple rounds of rain spread out several months instead of one or two major storms are better. He says that with the lack of rain, the ground is too hard to absorb mass amounts of rain and that it will take several months to get rid of the drought.
On Nov. 21, New Jersey received some much-needed relief with rainfall and the first snow of the season after weeks of unseasonably warm temperatures and very little rain. North Jersey and the northern parts of Central Jersey received 2 to 3 inches of rain. Upon Thanksgiving Day, residents of New Jersey had another wet and soggy day, receiving a half-inch to three-quarters of an inch of rain.
The rain helped, but did not end the drought. New Jersey’s drinking water supply from the reservoirs is still lower than normal.
James Tomasini, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Upton, New York, office said, “If the region doesn’t get any more rain through the end of Saturday, which looks to be the case at this point, it will make this meteorological fall, which stretches from Sept. 1 to Nov. 30, the driest on record for the Newark area, with only 3.8 inches of rain compared with the typical 10.5 inches.”
As of Nov. 27, the northern half of New Jersey was still in D2 status which means severe drought. The southern half of New Jersey was in D3 status which is higher than D2 and is in an extreme drought.
Conditions of the drought are still in the air and are called into question with the rain conditions experienced in New Jersey. There are hopes that the rain will come later this week in order to correct some of the conditions of the drought.
rbleich@ramapo.edu
Featured photo courtesy of Nitin Shukla
