A “flash drought” touching much of the Northeast, including every state in New England, has continued to intensify this summer, federal forecasters warned last week. The situation is prompting officials to issue fresh warnings of possible wildfires and even implement new water restrictions, with some experts worried the unusual dry spell could signal an emerging pattern in the region—far from the historic megadrought that has plagued the American West for the past two decades.
On Thursday, federal forecasters with the U.S. Drought Monitor upgraded large sections of eastern Massachusetts and southeast Rhode Island from “severe” to “extreme” drought, the second-most severe rating given by the agency. Drought conditions also expanded into parts of Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, including in New York City, where parts of Brooklyn are now seeing “severe” levels of drought for the first time in 20 years.
Last week, Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee issued a statewide drought advisory, asking residents to voluntarily dial back their water use. Several Massachusetts towns have also begun to enforce mandatory water restrictions, telling residents to “immediately cease using unnecessary water,” such as filling up pools. And this week, state officials in Connecticut, along with the National Weather Service, issued fresh warnings over potential wildfires, saying the threat of an outbreak in parts of the state were now “extreme.”
While the Northeast has experienced such droughts before, experts say the recent spate of summer dry spells has been unusual because of its frequency, speed and severity—a likely sign that climate change is exacerbating the situation. Several states in the area have experienced some degree of severe drought every summer since 2016, causing some experts to worry the streak foreshadows an emerging pattern for a region that many have considered relatively insulated from the threats of global warming.
“We hope this is maybe one period of peaking of drought and we get back to many more years of normal precipitation,” Vandana Rao, director of water policy in Massachusetts, told The Associated Press. “But it could just be the beginning of a longer trend.”
In fact, more than half of the United States was facing some level of drought this month, after an especially dry and hot July, the U.S. Drought Monitor said in another recent update. Record-breaking heat this summer, spanning the nation’s coasts—and mirroring similar extreme weather in Europe and Asia—contributed to a “flash drought” developing in parts of the Midwest, South and Northeast, including in states such as Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Massachusetts.
Flash droughts are defined by the rapid onset or intensification of dry conditions, often in a matter of days, that are largely due to bouts of extreme heat, low precipitation and high winds. The areas now in “extreme drought” have received about half of the rainfall that they normally would over the last six months, federal officials said. That’s about 9 to 11 inches less than normal.
Some cities saw even less rain. Federal officials say that Providence, Rhode Island, had less than half an inch of rainfall in July, making it the city’s third driest on record. Similarly, Boston had six-tenths of an inch that month, making it the fourth driest on record. And while parts of the Northeast have seen short bursts of heavy rainfall this summer, such quick downpours tend to run off rather than properly saturate the soil, therefore offering little relief.
That rapid acceleration makes flash droughts especially threatening to industries like farming. Federal officials warn that flash droughts can quickly cause extensive damage to agriculture, ecosystems and economies. Many farmers in Northeastern states are now scrambling to prepare for potentially worse months ahead. In Massachusetts, where the entire state is now officially considered in drought, farmers are already reporting crop losses.
Such losses are only compounding an already tough market for farmers, who have dealt with a year of skyrocketing inflation and a summer of erratic, record-breaking weather nationwide. On Monday, federal forecasters warned of yet another summer heat wave expected to impact much of the country this week, prompting heat advisories in Oregon, Washington, California, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi. Some cities along the West Coast and in the South are expected to hit oppressive temperatures nearing 110 degrees Fahrenheit by Wednesday. Many of those states are also under heightened warnings for flash floods this week.
Parts of the Northeast and the Gulf Coast could see much needed rain this week, too, forecasters said Monday. But many also noted that it’s unlikely that precipitation will be enough to break or even alleviate drought conditions.
Scientists worry that without far more intervention—including more quickly moving the economy away from the burning of fossil fuels—much of the United States will continue to face increasingly unwieldy weather conditions in the coming decades. By 2053, around 107 million Americans can expect to see temperatures above 125 degrees Fahrenheit during the hottest stretches of the year, more than 10 times the number expected currently, according to a study published Monday.
Consecutive days of extreme heat will occur most frequently on the West Coast, the study’s authors wrote, but “states in the Midwest, Southeast, and East Coast are most at risk of exposure to extremely dangerous temperatures, meaning virtually the entire country is subject to increasing perils associated with heat exposure.”
Thanks for reading Today’s Climate, and I’ll be back in your inbox on Friday.
Today’s Indicator
$297.5 billion
That’s how much China spent on transitioning its economy to renewable energy sources last year alone, showing how the U.S.—even with its new $370 billion climate package—continues to lag other major economies when it comes to green spending, u003ca href=u0022https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-15/just-how-big-is-the-374-billion-us-climate-bill-in-global-terms?srnd=greenu0022u003eaccording to a new Bloomberg analysisu003c/au003e.
Top News from Our Warming World
Biden to Sign Major Health, Climate and Tax Bill Tuesday at White House Ceremony – ABC News
Climate Change Doubles Likelihood of ‘Megaflood’ in California, Study Warns – The Hill
Rise in Extreme Heat Will Hit Minority Communities Hardest – E&E News
About This Story
Perhaps you noticed: This story, like all the news we publish, is free to read. That’s because Inside Climate News is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We do not charge a subscription fee, lock our news behind a paywall, or clutter our website with ads. We make our news on climate and the environment freely available to you and anyone who wants it.
That’s not all. We also share our news for free with scores of other media organizations around the country. Many of them can’t afford to do environmental journalism of their own. We’ve built bureaus from coast to coast to report local stories, collaborate with local newsrooms and co-publish articles so that this vital work is shared as widely as possible.
Two of us launched ICN in 2007. Six years later we earned a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and now we run the oldest and largest dedicated climate newsroom in the nation. We tell the story in all its complexity. We hold polluters accountable. We expose environmental injustice. We debunk misinformation. We scrutinize solutions and inspire action.
Donations from readers like you fund every aspect of what we do. If you don’t already, will you support our ongoing work, our reporting on the biggest crisis facing our planet, and help us reach even more readers in more places?
Please take a moment to make a tax-deductible donation. Every one of them makes a difference.
Thank you,
Kristoffer Tigue
Reporter, Midwest
Kristoffer Tigue is a staff writer for Inside Climate News, covering climate issues in the Midwest. He previously wrote the twice-weekly newsletter, Today’s Climate, and helped lead ICN’s national coverage on environmental justice. His work has been published in Reuters, Scientific American, Mother Jones, HuffPost and many more. Tigue holds a Master’s degree in journalism from the Missouri School of Journalism.
