Some homes were evacuated as the wildfire spread into the Colliers Mills Wildfire Management Area in Ocean County, New Jersey.
Rockman Vural Elibor / | Anatolia | Getty Images
dry and unusually warm conditions Much of the Northeast has been plunged into drought, fueling wildfires in New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, October was one of the driest months on record in the United States. Especially in the Northeast, precipitation is scarce.
Cities like Philadelphia; Newark, New Jersey; Wilmington, Delaware; and Norfolk, Virginia, get no rain at all in October, according to the weather service. southeast regional climate centercollecting precipitation data from more than 1,400 weather stations across the country. Several cities, including Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., set new records for the number of consecutive rain-free days in October.
“We don’t typically associate this region with drought,” said Benjamin Cook, an adjunct research scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York. “It’s not common for droughts to persist this severe.”
The drought has not eased into the first week of November, with much of the region in “severe” drought according to the National Weather Service’s classification. US Drought Monitorthe company tracks conditions across the country and releases color-coded maps each week to show the extent and intensity of the drought.
The latest map released Thursday by the Drought Monitor shows drought conditions expanding from Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York to Massachusetts and Maine. Drought conditions have intensified in some states, with parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Maryland now in “extreme” drought.
“Extreme droughts are basically 1-in-25-year drought events,” said Brian Fuchs, a climatologist at the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and co-author of the U.S. Drought Monitor map. .
Some homes were evacuated as the wildfire spread into the Colliers Mills Wildfire Management Area in Ocean County, New Jersey.
Rockman Vural Elibor / | Anatolia | Getty Images
New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania have issued drought watches and warnings, urging people to voluntarily reduce water use.
The region was experiencing drier and warmer-than-usual weather, in part due to a strong ridge of high pressure that lingered in the atmosphere over much of the country for weeks. In late October and early November, temperatures were 15 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit above normal in the Northeast, Great Lakes, and South.
More than half of the continental United States is experiencing some degree of drought. That includes 56 percent of the Northeast, according to the Drought Monitor.
“A lot of it is not because of what happened in one week,” Fox said, “but because of the accumulation of dryness and the above-normal temperatures in the region, week after week, we don’t see that pattern breaking. .
As with any extreme weather event, it will take time to assess how climate change contributed to the current drought, but Fox said overall global warming is causing above-average temperatures across the region, which is causing land and vegetation to dry out.
Effectively address climate change “Supercharged” water circulation —The way water naturally circulates between the ground, oceans and atmosphere. Although drought is the most pressing threat, rainfall across the Northeast is also generally increasing due to climate change, as the warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture. Therefore, when storms come, more rain may fall on land, increasing the risk of flooding.
Fox said such a rapid shift between extremes was exactly what was predicted in the government’s fifth national climate assessment. The report, released in 2023, details the current and future impacts of climate change on the United States.
Some homes were evacuated as the wildfire spread into the Colliers Mills Wildfire Management Area in Ocean County, New Jersey.
Rockman Vural Elibor / | Anatolia | Getty Images
“It’s either wet or dry, we don’t have those transition periods,” Fox said. “It’s definitely one of the known effects of climate change. We’re transitioning from one state to another – from wet to dry, from dry to wet – and it seems to be happening faster.”
In the Southeast, for example, hurricanes Helen and Milton inundated the region and caused catastrophic flooding in Florida and North Carolina. But since then, some areas have experienced record droughts, Fox said.
“When you look at the Drought Monitor map this week and you see all these colors across the Southeast, you might be thinking, ‘Well, didn’t they just have historic flooding a while ago?’ That’s absolutely true. , but it has been in drought ever since,” he said. “This is just one example, but the Northeast is not immune.”
In the West, 44% of the region is experiencing some degree of drought. Dry, windy weather has sent a “red flag” warning to millions of residents in California this week. this Ventura County Wildfires Nearly 20,000 acres have burned and 14,000 evacuation notices have been issued since the outbreak began Wednesday morning.
Meanwhile, the Northeast also faces dangerous fire weather: Every region in New Jersey faces “very high” or “extremely high” fire risk, According to the state Forest Fire Service.
The service said it responded to 507 incidents in October. A fire broke out in Ocean County on Wednesday, forcing residents of more than a dozen homes to evacuate.
Meanwhile, firefighters in Connecticut are battling more than 100 brush fires. Governor Ned Lamont declare a state of emergency On October 25, a lack of rainfall triggered “severe fire weather” in the state. this The Connecticut Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security said Wednesday Connecticut still faces “extreme fire danger.”
Long-range forecasts from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center indicate Drought in Northeast China may last until November. Winter is coming and things are expected to get better Improved in Januarybut parts of Massachusetts, New Jersey, Delaware and West Virginia may still experience some degree of drought.
