Drought conditions worsen in parts of the Commonwealth, while other areas show improvement.<\/p>\n
After the January 8, 2026, meeting of the Commonwealth Drought Task Force, several changes were made to the prior drought declaration.<\/p>\n
The following counties have been issued a Drought Watch: Berks, Bedford, Chester, Cumberland, Huntingdon, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Lebanon, Luzerne, Mifflin, and Snyder.Fulton County has been elevated to Drought Warning status.The following counties have returned to Normal conditions: Cameron, Crawford, Elk, Erie, Forest, McKean, Potter, and Warren.<\/p>\n
These updates bring the total number of counties under Drought Watch to 40. The counties currently in Drought Watch are: Adams, Beaver, Bedford, Berks, Bradford, Butler, Cambria, Carbon, Chester, Clarion, Clearfield, Clinton,\u00a0Cumberland, Franklin, Fulton, Huntingdon, Indiana, Jefferson, Juniata, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Lawrence, Lebanon, Lehigh, Luzerne, Lycoming, Mercer, Mifflin, Monroe, Northampton, Northumberland, Perry, Pike, Schuylkill, Snyder, Somerset, Tioga, Union, Venango, and Washington. Fulton County is in Drought Warning.<\/p>\n
These changes reflect the varied precipitation patterns and uneven groundwater recovery observed across Pennsylvania. While some regions have benefited from increased rainfall over the past several months and improved streamflow, others\u2014particularly in the south-central and eastern parts of the Commonwealth\u2014continue to experience declining groundwater levels and persistent precipitation deficits.<\/p>\n
Other areas of the Commonwealth may also be experiencing localized drought issues.<\/p>\n
Residents should always pay attention to any information they receive from their local water supplier. Varying localized conditions may lead water suppliers or municipalities to ask residents to continue conservation measures.<\/p>\n
The Department always encourages residents to voluntarily conserve nonessential water use.<\/p>\n
See the list below for current conservation measures applied by public water suppliers as well as some water conservation tips.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drought conditions worsen in parts of the Commonwealth, while other areas show improvement. After the January 8, 2026,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":{"0":"post-114725","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-pennsylvania","9":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","10":"tag-pennsylvania-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}