Last week's rain helped; drought persists
BWI picked up almost an inch and a half of rain last week. Other parts of the state saw even more, and the impact can be seen on this week's Drought Monitor map. It's out this morning, and reflects soil moisture, rain, and streamflow as of this past Tuesday.
The numbers show significant improvement, but extreme southern Maryland and the Lower Eastern Shore remain in some drought distress.
Rain reduced the "severe" drought zone in parts of Worcester and Wicomico counties. The percentage of the state experiencing severe drought slipped from 11.5 percent to 9.6 percent.
Conditions in the Baltimore area also improved. The northern tier of counties from Garrett, through Carroll, Baltimore, Harford and Cecil are once again enjoying normal moisture conditions, an increase from 31 percent of the state on last week's map, to 49 percent today. The gains allowed Baltimore City last week to shut off the flow of supplementary water from the Susquehanna River.
"Moderate" drought conditions, which prevailed last week from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge southward to St. Mary's County and Hooper's Island on the Eastern Shore, is limited now to extreme Southern Maryland and Dorchester County on the Shore.
Overall, just 51 percent of the state is still contending with "abnormally dry" or drought conditions, down from almost 69 percent last week.
On well water? Groundwater conditions are slowly improving, too. Here's a fresh look at the water table in a USGS monitoring well in Granite, Baltimore County. The record low on this well is 28.2 feet, reached in 2002. The median for this time of year is between 22 and 23 feet below the surface. It's currently at 25 feet and change. Still low, but climbing.
Meanwhile, AccuWeather.com's long-range forecaster Joe Bastardi is predicting the La Nina-related dry weather we've seen since last April will continue. Here's what he said in a release issued today:
"While precipitation this winter was not as far below normal as during the fall and summer in the Southeast, the La Nina pattern still suggests the drier-than-normal trend will continue, probably into at least the summer," said Bastardi. "Combining this with the general trend of drought produced by the warm phase of the Atlantic Ocean water temperature cycle, much of the Southeast will remain in dire straits for the longer term."
"As a warning to farmers and gardeners, Bastardi added that dry weather may combine with occasional cold air charging into the Southeast from Canada to produce a late frost threat in the Southeast, perhaps into mid-April."
