Harvest of dust: Entire region now in dry zones
Feds: All Jersey, parts of Philly, Montco, Bucks in “moderate drought.
It's unclear how the fall foliage show will be affected, but right now the region's rain deficits are growing at a disturbing rate.
With this week's report, the U.S. Drought Monitor has placed the entire region in its dry zones, with parts of South Jersey, most of Philadelphia and the lower portions of Montgomery and Bucks County in "moderate drought."
The rest of the region is designated as "abnormally dry."
The Garden State hasn't posted any advisories for South Jersey yet, but the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has Chester and Delaware Counties and Philadelphia under a drought watch.
We shouldn't be surprised.
With dry fronts and the absence of storms — named and unnamed — the last month has been bone dry just about everywhere around here.
In the 30-day period that ended Wednesday, only Chester County had received 2 inches of rain — and that was about half of normal.
Rainfall in Bucks, Burlington, Camden, and Delaware Counties was about a third of normal, and just 40 percent in Philly and Montco. Outside of Chester County, rain totals were in the vicinity of 1.5 inches, about 2.5 below the averages.
That's based on the data from the Middle Atlantic River Forecast Center, which averages out totals from several stations in each county.
We've mentioned before that the last several years have constituted quite a wet period in the region and that drought conditions have been scarce.
Unless the climate system somehow has gone kablooey, we're overdue.
