Not enough, unfortunately
By Bonnie Phillips / ecoRI News staff
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.
