2024 has been a year of extremes in the Northeast and Middle Atlantic. During the Spring into the Summer the region was very wet, with many areas seeing record rainfall amounts. We saw a lot of heat from Mid-May into August. The heat set the stage for drought conditions here in our region. Then starting in late August, the region flipped to a dry pattern. Over the last several weeks many parts of the region haven’t received much in the way of rain. For a large part of our region, we saw the driest October on record.
There is a
saying, drought begets drought. There is a lot of truth in this, drought leads
to more drought. The heat dries out the ground. As the ground continues to dry
out, the air above the ground becomes drier and drier. Due to the dry ground
the sun energy goes straight to warming the ground, with out having to waste energy
evaporating the water that would be in the ground. As the ground heats up, it
warms the air even more. Then the plants get into the mix. Normally plants give
off moisture which increases humidity. But when the ground is dry, the plants
hold on to the moisture, so the air becomes even drier. This
ends up as a feedback mechanism the results in a feedback loop, that makes
things get worse and worse.
Many have
asked where is the rain. The feedback loop gets so bad, that when systems have
pushed into the region, they run into this bubble of dry air, the rain that
start to fall, will dry up before it reaches the ground. This is what has led
us to where we are right now.
November has
continued the dry pattern, resulting in streamflow, groundwater levels, and
soil moisture continuing to get worse. As a result, abnormally dry, moderate
drought and severe drought has expanded across most of the region.
The U.S.
Drought Monitor released earlier today showed 1% of the Northeast in
exceptional drought, 6% in extreme drought, 13% in severe drought, 37% in
moderate drought, and 37% as abnormally dry compared to 1%, 4%, 10%, 23%, and
41%, respectively, last week.
I see the current back and forth pattern with overall dry conditions to continue. November will unlikely end up with overall above average temperatures. So the drought conditions going forward are liable to worsen.
Do you think this pattern will eventually flip?
ReplyDeleteEvery pattern does change at some point, but the steps leading up to the change can be slow to come in a persistent pattern like we're in now. We will have chances for rainfall going forward, this pattern is going to make widespread soaking rain events very hard to come-by. Rafael should stay in the Gulf, but if Rafael does end up making a landfall on the Gulf Coast, he would get tangled up in the progressive pattern of quick moving fronts. Some of that moisture could bring us some rain into our region, but that isn’t a sure thing. I just don’t see this overall pattern changing for the entire month of November. There are signs of some kind of pattern flip once we get into December. But we will have to see how that pans out. With the overall temperatures looking to stay overall above average for the next several weeks, I expect the drought will be getting worse.
DeleteWell that is bad news. And if Winter is dry too it'll be very bad for us since we can't maintain a snowpack at least at the lower elevations we haven't had a season long snowpack in a decade.
ReplyDeleteSome area ponds are at the lowest levels is years. Water table will affect wells.
DeleteThat is very true and is my worry as well!
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