Northeast Drought Likely To Worsen; Europe Drought Off The Charts

Much of the Northeast is dry or having a drought. The
drought is especially bad in southeastern New England,
as this map from U.S. Drought Monitor shows.

 This really has been a summer in which water distribution has been terrible

A number of areas around the world have suffered often catastrophic floods (the subject of an upcoming post), while others have dried out worryingly. 

Over time, in the last few months, a drought has developed here in New England.  Over in Europe, things have reached a crisis level. We'll look at our home turf first, then cruise on over to Europe to see how bad things are there. 

NEW ENGLAND

It's beginning to look like that out of season nor'easter I talked about yesterday will be mostly a miss.  A few computer models still bring rain to New England, but most are trending the storm out to sea.

That's bad news as drought increases region-wide. The only parts of New England that are not abnormally dry or in drought are northwestern Vermont and northern Maine. I have a feeling northwest Vermont will soon join the dry club as not much rain is in the forecast. Northern Maine still has a decent shot of receiving some decent enough rains from that predicted mid-week storm. 

The worst area, according to U.S. Drought Monitor, are parts of eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island, which are categorized as being in "extreme drought." That's level four of five drought categories, with only "exceptional drought" being worse.

The "extreme drought" zone in New England has had less than half of its normal rainfall over the past three months, and are ten inches or so below normal for the year so far. They'd better hope for a string of nor'easters this autumn, that's for sure. 

Vermont is faring somewhat better. Parts of central and southeastern Vermont were in moderate drought as of last Thursday, which is the last time the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor was updated. However, the percentage of the state regarded as "abnormally dry" increased from 57 to 82 percent. 

While long range forecasts for rain can be iffy, at the moment, most of Vermont is only expecting a quarter inch or less of rain over the next seven days. The general rule of thumb in Vermont is an inch of rain per week is sufficient. 

So far, ground water in southern New England has been mostly sufficient so that not too many wells have gone dry. But ground water is drying up, stream flows in rivers is lame at best and reservoirs are receding. The forest fire risk in some parts of the region is ticking upwards, too. You can see it in the trees in southeastern New England, too.  Some of them are dropping leaves prematurely because of the dry conditions. 

This isn't a full blown crisis yet, but has the potential to become one if this goes on much further. 

EUROPE DROUGHT

Another heat wave swept swaths of Europe in the past few days, creating more record high temperatures and worsening a drought there that is beginning to have real and serious  economic impacts. 

A little under 50 percent of the European Union is in drought and nearly 20 percent of the rest of that vast area is on the cusp of drought. 

As the Washington Post explained, winter and spring precipitation wasn't great to begin with.  Rain has been lame all summer, Intense heat has increased evaporation. The result is that in some areas, the drought is the worst in perhaps 500 years. 

Red areas in this map show where drought is causing
problems in Europe. 

In London, rainfall during their hot July amounted to 0.04 inches.  Normal for the month is 1.77 inches.

Water shortages are afflicting Spain, France, the Netherlands and Italy.

Commerce and shipping along the Rhine River is a shadow of its normal capacity. Barges are only carrying 30 to 40 percent capacity because the river is so low.  If the barges carried more, they'd scrape bottom due to the low water. 

A measuring gauge along the Rhine River at Kaub had the water level at 14.7 inches (The actual shipping channels there are much deeper). However, if the level goes below 14 inches shipping and running barges becomes difficult. If it gets to 11.8 inches, the Rhine is completely impassable to shipping, the Associated Press reports. 

A little rain is in the forecast, but it's unclear as to whether it will help water levels along the Rhine. 

The Po River in Italy is similarly low.  Much of that river's water is used for agriculture. Crop yields in Italy are already down by 30 percent. 

All these issues are continuing to make things more expensive, which is making inflation pressure worse in Europe.  And it's probably having some effect world wide. Including in the United States.

On top of all that, wildfires continue to rage in Spain, Portugal, France United Kingdom and other areas.

Scientists said the European heat wave and drought are examples of the kinds of things we're going to have to increasingly deal with as climate change continues to worsen.