Will the sunny, dry pattern with little rain last all summer?
When you hear the term drought, you usually think of California or Texas, not New England. Here in this part of the country, regular periods of rain keep things generally green all summer, and melting winter snow fills the groundwater each spring.
Since 2015, however, much of New England—especially along the coastal plain—hasn’t received normal precipitation, and the result is an expanding drought.
All that snow two winters ago just didn’t have a lot of moisture. The following summer was also dry. As a result, only four months since May 2015 have seen average or above average rainfall. In other words, 10 of the last 14 months have seen below average rainfall.
Most of the past 14 months have been dry
The plus side of all this dry weather has been the sunshine and lack of humidity. I can’t recall a June with so many perfect days. Day after day of stunning weather, and night after night of temperatures ideal for sleeping are just not commonplace this time of year. In some respects, June has felt more like the month of September with three hours more daylight.
However, there are several downsides to the dry weather. One thing you might have noticed over the past few weeks are defoliated trees. This is likely a result of gypsy moth caterpillars, which haven’t been much of an issue the past few years. How are moths related to the drought? A fungus that usually keeps the gypsy moth caterpillars in check needs moisture to grow successfully. Less moisture, less fungus. And less fungus means more caterpillars.
If the dry weather continues, the defoliated trees will be put under more stress and dieback can occur. It’s unlikely one year of defoliation and drought would kill a tree, but it could if a tree was already declining.
This weather pattern shows no signs of breaking down. There are showers in the forecast Tuesday night and Wednesday, but I don’t expecting much in the way of rain totals. When you read a high chance of showers, that means there’s a high chance of rain amounting to at least one-hundredth of an inch. That’s insignificant. Many drought-stricken areas are 10 inches below average precipitation since last spring, and a few summertime thunderstorms won’t change that fact.
Very little rain expected over the next 10 days in areas already very dry.
Unless there’s a tropical system that reaches New England this summer, we’ll likely have to wait until fall before truly beneficial rains arrive. Could July and August turn wet with lots of showers? Absolutely, but that’s not as likely as the dry pattern continuing.
Lawns are already browning and any farms without irrigation are starting to see their crops languish. The weather might continue to feature lots of sunshine, but as summer rolls on, the drought of 2016 may become the bigger story.
I will be regularly updating the status of the drought on Twitter @growingwisdom.
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