Drought conditions affecting river levels in Northeast US

AccuWeather

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.

Transcript

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.

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