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Drought, It Is Getting Dry Out There


cbelke

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Decided to pull the U.S. Drought Monitor data into Excel for an easy reference this summer in case the drought continues to worsen. I narrowed it down to the Mt. Holly CWA. Data goes back to 2000.

1st image is the 10 most recent weeks, just started to get into the Abnormal category. 2nd image is the "worst-case scenario" of highest drought index values. 2002 must have been a rough year :unsure2: only time in the dataset where we got into the Exceptional category.

drought1.PNG

drought 3.PNG

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1 hour ago, ACwx said:

Decided to pull the U.S. Drought Monitor data into Excel for an easy reference this summer in case the drought continues to worsen. I narrowed it down to the Mt. Holly CWA. Data goes back to 2000.

1st image is the 10 most recent weeks, just started to get into the Abnormal category. 2nd image is the "worst-case scenario" of highest drought index values. 2002 must have been a rough year :unsure2: only time in the dataset where we got into the Exceptional category.

drought1.PNG

drought 3.PNG

My memory fades but that was the last serious drought I recall. If not for Floyd, it would have been 1960s esque here around 2000.

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22 minutes ago, Rainshadow6.6 said:

My memory fades but that was the last serious drought I recall. If not for Floyd, it would have been 1960s esque here around 2000.

Wasn’t 2003 pretty bad or somewhere around that year.  It was a fall into spring one. 

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6 hours ago, Rainshadow6.6 said:

My memory fades but that was the last serious drought I recall. If not for Floyd, it would have been 1960s esque here around 2000.

Locally 10" in the bucket over the 30 days preceding Floyd so we had the reprieve regardless but yeah if not for SEPT 1999 & SEPT 2000 you could have been looking at 6 consecutive years of below average precip.

 

As mentioned the last actual drought was NOV 2001-NOV 2002 & it was severe.

https://www.state.nj.us/drbc/hydrological/drought/

716279239_DRBCDroughtHistory.png.fe599ebdd2395a9754f0a8c820a198ba.png

From a drought monitor standpoint the maps looked looked like this, LOL just a little different than the current map.

20020326_northeast_date.png.77a8d8b347c350bc3642f85bcc8fc33b.png

Despite reservoir storage levels above drought threshold a drought emergency was declared during the summer of 1999 primarily due to the salt line advancing near PHL.

230387438_pa1999drought.jpg.799c179cd4b6ed32c44c34c72ce2f5b0.jpg

Bottom line is based on DRBC criteria we are nowhere near even drought watch status let alone an actual drought. All reservoirs are at 100% capacity, river streamflow is normal & the salt line is right where is supposed to be this time of year. Once again for frame of reference the combined usable capacity of these reservoirs dropped to 25% during DEC 2001. 

5686936_DRBStorage.png.274a9b0d6df508b0f2658f1cde93135b.png

 

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10 hours ago, colonel_kurtz said:

Locally 10" in the bucket over the 30 days preceding Floyd so we had the reprieve regardless but yeah if not for SEPT 1999 & SEPT 2000 you could have been looking at 6 consecutive years of below average precip.

 

As mentioned the last actual drought was NOV 2001-NOV 2002 & it was severe.

https://www.state.nj.us/drbc/hydrological/drought/

716279239_DRBCDroughtHistory.png.fe599ebdd2395a9754f0a8c820a198ba.png

From a drought monitor standpoint the maps looked looked like this, LOL just a little different than the current map.

20020326_northeast_date.png.77a8d8b347c350bc3642f85bcc8fc33b.png

Despite reservoir storage levels above drought threshold a drought emergency was declared during the summer of 1999 primarily due to the salt line advancing near PHL.

230387438_pa1999drought.jpg.799c179cd4b6ed32c44c34c72ce2f5b0.jpg

Bottom line is based on DRBC criteria we are nowhere near even drought watch status let alone an actual drought. All reservoirs are at 100% capacity, river streamflow is normal & the salt line is right where is supposed to be this time of year. Once again for frame of reference the combined usable capacity of these reservoirs dropped to 25% during DEC 2001. 

5686936_DRBStorage.png.274a9b0d6df508b0f2658f1cde93135b.png

 

I remember the heated discussions in the mid 2000s when the Delaware was flooding regularly for a couple of years to never have the reservoirs at capacity.  I am glad it has either been rescinded or ignored. 

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34 minutes ago, Rainshadow6.6 said:

I remember the heated discussions in the mid 2000s when the Delaware was flooding regularly for a couple of years to never have the reservoirs at capacity.  I am glad it has either been rescinded or ignored. 

I remember a number of discussions on that and one of the theories was the amount of housing developments happening within a few miles of the river and the deforestation was allowing the water to run off in to the river since there was nothing slowing/blocking the run off.  This run off was supposedly one of the causes for the increased flooding.

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37 minutes ago, cbelke said:

I remember a number of discussions on that and one of the theories was the amount of housing developments happening within a few miles of the river and the deforestation was allowing the water to run off in to the river since there was nothing slowing/blocking the run off.  This run off was supposedly one of the causes for the increased flooding.

Living near an ocean, river or having a basement all have two scenarios.  There are those that have flooded and those that have yet to flood.

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5 hours ago, Rainshadow6.6 said:

Living near an ocean, river or having a basement all have two scenarios.  There are those that have flooded and those that have yet to flood.

Dry spring, especially during the 1st half of March, was a huge saving grace for immediate river dwellers & businesses. If ever there was a year poised for spring flooding on the Delaware it was this year. 

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Not in our region, but I saw someone on Twitter post this shot from North Dakota. Apparently they are in a Category 3 (Extreme) drought and the green patch here is where there was a huge snow bank over the winter...

image.png

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Mt. Holly had a nice graphic this morning showing our current dry streak vs. the longest in history. However I saw a comment asking how the current streak ranks against past Mays instead of year-round. 

9 out of the top 10 dry streaks occurred in late summer or fall, with only 2001 being in spring. Also we are currently on pace for the 4th driest May on record dating back to 1872.

 

image.png

image.png

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32 minutes ago, ACwx said:

Mt. Holly had a nice graphic this morning showing our current dry streak vs. the longest in history. However I saw a comment asking how the current streak ranks against past Mays instead of year-round. 

9 out of the top 10 dry streaks occurred in late summer or fall, with only 2001 being in spring. Also we are currently on pace for the 4th driest May on record dating back to 1872.

 

image.png

image.png

Very rare for spring.

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