Drought of 2021

[Albedoman]

Yes- I am calling it FWIW. No significant rain predicted for another week. Go ahead and call me a weenie but I have been forecasting weather  for 40 years and I clearly see the handwriting on the wall  like in 2002 in a La Nina year. The GOM moisture eludes our region  and temporary back door cold fronts offer no relief.  Lehigh Valley is already 3+ inches below normal for the year and only ABE is recording any precip as they seem to be the wet spot  in the entire LV . Their precip totals does not actually represent the entire LV existing drought conditions. The rain in the past 30+ days has been spotty and I have had less than .25 inches  in almost 40 days here in Macungie.

[ChescoWx]

I agree I have already told folks we are due for a well below normal rain year as the last 3 have been well above normal - these things as all things climate have a way of evening out. Through today here in Western Chester County PA we are 1.93" below this month with only 1.23" of rain and 3.56" below normal YTD with only 15.01" of rain so far in 2021

[Birds~69]

I may be at norm (or above) for the month of May after tonight and this weekend...

[RedSky]

The pattern is about to do an abrupt 180 and have a feeling in two weeks we will be begging for an end to the incessant rain...

 

 

[JTA66]

No better drought buster than a summertime holiday weekend. 

[Birds~69]

7 hours ago, JTA66 said:

No better drought buster than a summertime holiday weekend. 

Call me crazy, I'm diggin this weekend forecast. Cool (50s) clouds, showers/rain at times, car stays clean, much reduced pollen, ease drought and I can still BBQ, drink beer and hang around a firepit...all around win/win. Much better than a 90s HHH weekend. Icing on the cake would be a lone stray cicada landing on my T-shirt...actually it may be flannel w/the 50s temps. 

81F / DP 51F

[nycwinter]

12 minutes ago, Birds~69 said:

Call me crazy, I'm diggin this weekend forecast. Cool (50s) clouds, showers/rain at times, car stays clean, much reduced pollen, ease drought and I can still BBQ, drink beer and hang around a firepit...all around win/win. Much better than a 90s HHH weekend. Icing on the cake would be a lone stray cicada landing on my T-shirt...actually it may be flannel w/the 50s temps. 

81F / DP 51F

i enjoy chilly days this time of year knowing when the heat is here to stay we will all dream of the cool crisp fall..

[JTA66]

1 hour ago, nycwinter said:

i enjoy chilly days this time of year knowing when the heat is here to stay we will all dream of the cool crisp fall..

Yep, works for me too. Perfect excuse to not do yard work and binge watch Netflix all weekend!

[Birds~69]

5 minutes ago, JTA66 said:

Yep, works for me too. Perfect excuse to not do yard work and binge watch Netflix all weekend!

Yard work (and anything else work related) is tomorrow morning/early afternoon before the rain rolls in....anything goes after that.

6abc Cecily/Adam summer outlook Sat at 7pm. Don't expect anything less than a blowtorch...

77F

[CoolHandMike]

12 minutes ago, Birds~69 said:

Yard work (and anything else work related) is tomorrow morning/early afternoon before the rain rolls in....anything goes after that.

6abc Cecily/Adam summer outlook Sat at 7pm. Don't expect anything less than a blowtorch...

77F

While I really prefer the cold, I think I'm ok with a little bit of heat this summer given how mild Spring was (until last week) and the decent amount of snow last Feb. I guess I just like my seasons to be more defined than they seem to have been in recent years. Proper snow, then a slow warm-up, then some summer heat... As long as it doesn't last into October.

[Birds~69]

On 5/27/2021 at 6:45 PM, Birds~69 said:

Yard work (and anything else work related) is tomorrow morning/early afternoon before the rain rolls in....anything goes after that.

6abc Cecily/Adam summer outlook Sat at 7pm. Don't expect anything less than a blowtorch...

77F

Just watched, not bad.

Their predictions:

30 days 90+ and that's for Philly

Summer temps +1 - +2

First part of summer more active (storms) drier second half

Tropics, didn't give specifics for our area but active w/less shear overall 

48F / drizzle

[Hurricane Agnes]

On 5/21/2021 at 11:43 PM, Albedoman said:

Yes- I am calling it FWIW. No significant rain predicted for another week. Go ahead and call me a weenie but I have been forecasting weather  for 40 years and I clearly see the handwriting on the wall  like in 2002 in a La Nina year. The GOM moisture eludes our region  and temporary back door cold fronts offer no relief.  Lehigh Valley is already 3+ inches below normal for the year and only ABE is recording any precip as they seem to be the wet spot  in the entire LV . Their precip totals does not actually represent the entire LV existing drought conditions. The rain in the past 30+ days has been spotty and I have had less than .25 inches  in almost 40 days here in Macungie.

Late to this thread but I do remember 2002 pretty clearly because that drought sortof started in fall 2001 right after 9/11 when we (at least here down in Philly) had minimal snow and a dry spring and that lead to a literal blast furnace summer, reaching extreme drought by the end of summer.

I think it finally broke with some remnant moisture from tropical systems Isidore and Kyle -

 

[zenmsav6810]

On 5/27/2021 at 7:00 PM, CoolHandMike said:

While I really prefer the cold, I think I'm ok with a little bit of heat this summer given how mild Spring was (until last week) and the decent amount of snow last Feb. I guess I just like my seasons to be more defined than they seem to have been in recent years. Proper snow, then a slow warm-up, then some summer heat... As long as it doesn't last into October.

Im okay with 84F w/ blue skies and a few clouds May-October with the gully washer mixed. The rest of the time I prefer snow on the ground in some form. 

[The Iceman]

This thread didn't age well. Much of SE PA and NJ are 125 - 150% above normal rainfall the last 90 days. Lehigh Valley is around normal. 

[JTA66]

Figured it’s time to give this thread a bump since I’m having the lawn aerated and over seeded this morning. Can’t think of a better way to start a drought.

[KamuSnow]

3 hours ago, JTA66 said:

Figured it’s time to give this thread a bump since I’m having the lawn aerated and over seeded this morning. Can’t think of a better way to start a drought.

Since I have a well and can water liberally I actually don't mind dry weather for seeding. I just prepped the front left yesterday (about 25k sq.ft.), have a wedding to go to today, but should get the seed down tomorrow.

I've had a few experiences with having seeded and watching the forecast evolve from a 30% chance of showers 5 days out, to HEAVY RAIN 3 days later, after the seed is down, with 3 to 5" of rain. Oh well, lol. Still gotta go for it on most occasions, because it's the weather. Sometimes we get "just the right amount" of rain.

Eta - so for me, seeding has sometimes meant inches of rain as opposed to a drought. Kind of like the getting your car washed effect.

[JTA66]

1 hour ago, KamuSnow said:

Since I have a well and can water liberally I actually don't mind dry weather for seeding. I just prepped the front left yesterday (about 25k sq.ft.), have a wedding to go to today, but should get the seed down tomorrow.

I've had a few experiences with having seeded and watching the forecast evolve from a 30% chance of showers 5 days out, to HEAVY RAIN 3 days later, after the seed is down, with 3 to 5" of rain. Oh well, lol. Still gotta go for it on most occasions, because it's the weather. Sometimes we get "just the right amount" of rain.

Eta - so for me, seeding has sometimes meant inches of rain as opposed to a drought. Kind of like the getting your car washed effect.

Agreed! I’d rather run the sprinklers for a few weeks than have an Ida redux wash it all away.

[Birds~69]

5 hours ago, JTA66 said:

Agreed! I’d rather run the sprinklers for a few weeks than have an Ida redux wash it all away.

The Atlantic is getting ramped up. Although we rarely get a direct hit we always seem to be a driveway for the remnants of a TS/hurricane with oodles of rain.

75F / DP 55F with crickets jamming...

 

[JTA66]

57 minutes ago, Birds~69 said:

The Atlantic is getting ramped up. Although we rarely get a direct hit we always seem to be a driveway for the remnants of a TS/hurricane with oodles of rain.

75F / DP 55F with crickets jamming...

 

Just give me two weeks for this stuff to germinate. (But I’d rather go the remainder of 2021 with no more tropical interactions.)

[BucksCO_PA]

On 9/12/2021 at 5:46 PM, Phil Connors said:

No major drought's in the 2000s. 

1999 was a major/extreme drought for perspective.

2000s on have been average or wetter for precip

Wrong, severe / extreme drought conditions occurred during the fall of 2001 & peaked in the spring of 2002. This drought was worse than 1999 as the combined reservoir storage system reached record low levels.

December 15, 2001 Combined storage in the NYC Delaware reservoir system drops to a record low level of 63.348 bg, or just 23.4% of capacity. This is more than 113 bg below normal storage levels for the date.

https://www.state.nj.us/drbc/library/documents/02chronology.pdf

https://www.nj.gov/drbc/library/documents/drought/DRBdrought-overview_feb2019.pdf

 

 

 

 

[Hurricane Agnes]

On 9/12/2021 at 5:46 PM, Phil Connors said:

No major drought's in the 2000s. 

1999 was a major/extreme drought for perspective.

2000s on have been average or wetter for precip

https://www.drought.gov/states/Pennsylvania

On 9/20/2021 at 4:29 PM, Phil Connors said:

90s drought > 00s drought and it's not even close. 00s got really wet around 2004 through the end of the decade

That just changed the goal posts.

[Hurricane Agnes]

3 hours ago, Phil Connors said:

Huh? 5 years isn't a decade. I'm comparing 1990-2000 and 2000-2010

The chart is showing from 1995 - 2005 to show the same scale across decades.  Your assertion has been that "there were no major drought's (sic) in the 2000s".  I.e., this -

On 9/12/2021 at 5:46 PM, Phil Connors said:

No major drought's in the 2000s. 

1999 was a major/extreme drought for perspective.

2000s on have been average or wetter for precip

The "1999 was a major/extreme drought for perspective" statement is clearly torpedoed by the chart showing 2001 - 2002, not only as a "major/extreme" drought, but with a higher and longer duration of time in "D2", "D3", and D4" levels of drought when compared to 1999.  I know many of us remember that year because it was when 9/11 happened and by a "freak of weather nature", there was very little snow in the midatlantic that winter while first responders were at ground zero doing recovery operations. I.e., they were able to work, generally unhindered, throughout a NYC winter.  But that lack of rain after September 2001, coupled with a lack of snow that winter, lead to a dry spring and even a record high temp on April 18, 2002 here of 95 - https://www.climatespy.com/climate/summary/united-states/pennsylvania/philadelphia-intl/april

And that morphed into an even drier summer, eventually resulting in a number of PA counties experiencing extreme drought conditions.

We were finally able to cash in on some of the rain from the remnants of Hurricane Isidore (name now retired) that September (along with some from TS Kyle later) to finally start breaking that drought.