AccuWeather's Alex Sosnowski reports worsening drought conditions in the Northeast region of the United States with many rivers heavily impacted and water reservoir levels dropping.
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00:00Alex, the new drought monitor came out today, and when you look at it,
00:03especially into the northeast, what do you see?
00:06Well, it looks like the drought has gotten worse in the northeast. If you look at the percentage of
00:11the areas experiencing abnormally dry to drought conditions, it's gone from 94 percent, which is
00:17almost the whole region, to 96 percent. So it's actually getting worse here in the northeast,
00:22despite the improvements out in the central U.S. and parts of the south. And it's a serious
00:27situation. You know, you turn on the shower in the morning, you wash the clothes. As long as
00:33the water's flowing, you don't seem to worry about it. And we're not at that point yet,
00:37but it could get to that point where we have water restrictions.
00:42Yeah, it could. Right now, across, I know, New Jersey, the officials are asking,
00:46you know, people to do it as they can before it becomes mandatory.
00:51Alex, when you look back at the 30-day rainfall, there was a huge, huge deficit,
00:54but some of this even goes past 30 days. You're talking since August in some locations.
00:59Yeah, around August 20th is when Mother Nature seemed like she turned the faucet off. And if
01:05you look at the deficit that's racked up since then, you're looking at a rainfall deficit of
01:10six to 12 inches. That may not sound like a huge amount over like a three-month period,
01:14but it really is. A lot of these places only get like 40 inches of rain per year. So
01:20if you take away 25% of the rainfall for the year and just suddenly turn everything off,
01:27it's a big deal. That's why we're seeing a lot of the reservoirs drying up. A lot of the bogs
01:33in New Jersey, the ponds, the small streams here, they're drying up. And that's leading to a lot of
01:41fish kill. A lot of wildlife is involved with that. So it's having huge impacts on a lot of things.
01:48And unfortunately, it looks like the situation isn't really going to get better here.
01:53And you mentioned some of the smaller streams and rivers,
01:56but we've got an image here of the Delaware River out of Stockton in low stage.
02:01Yeah. Now, if you look at these gauges, these are kind of like a situated stationary object that
02:07measures the river level. They're geared for measuring floods. And when it drops down below
02:12a certain point, you have the river bottom, which drops down below the bottom of the gate. So that's
02:16what you're seeing there with these negative values. But basically, that means the rocks are
02:20showing in a lot of places there. And in some cases, there's a dry riverbed that's been exposed.
02:26And this, of course, is up above on the Delaware River where it's not tidal anymore.
02:31But there's a lot of streams and rivers in the region here in a similar situation.
02:36And those streams and rivers, they feed the reservoirs. So if you turn off the water,
02:42coming into the reservoirs from the streams or rivers, what's going to happen to the reservoirs
02:46then? You can see the reservoir levels here in New York State, for example, if we take a look at that.
02:53You can see that normal at this point of the year, which is a dry time of the year,
02:56water levels are typically at their lowest point. But we're down below that, 62%. And we're dropping
03:02quick, folks. That's the thing. We're dropping fast. And Alex, using your expertise, what would
03:10we really need to get out of this? It's not just one rainfall event. Yeah, we have a couple of rain
03:18events coming up here, but they're not going to get everywhere. We have this one here that's
03:22swinging through Thursday into Thursday night. There's another one there you can see up in New
03:27England, the start of that here, that's going to be Friday into Saturday for New England.
03:31But that's not the type of rainfall that's going to make this go away. The topsoil is going to
03:36suck this up like a sieve, like a sponge. And so very little of this where it does rain is going to
03:41get into the streams and rivers. There may not even be any significant runoff associated with
03:45this other than in the urban areas, which carry a lot of pollutants into those streams. So that's a
03:51negative factor there too. But there is going to be a ripoff zone in between from New York State
03:55down through much of New Jersey and New York City. We saw the brush fire there in New York City
04:01yesterday. So that's all a factor of this thing. And you really got to be careful with your out
04:06when you're using power equipment. You don't want to toss cigarettes out because that can quickly
04:11start a significant wildfire in this situation. These are things that we don't normally think of,
04:16but we have to in this situation.