{"id":116460,"date":"2026-02-17T22:08:31","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T22:08:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/116460\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T22:08:31","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T22:08:31","slug":"lehigh-valley-weather-how-bad-is-the-drought-and-how-much-rain-are-we-expecting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/116460\/","title":{"rendered":"Lehigh Valley weather: How bad is the drought, and how much rain are we expecting?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lehigh Valley utility providers are asking or ordering customers to conserve water as Lehigh and Northampton counties remain under a state Drought Watch<\/a> to start 2026.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Drought Monitor website at drought.gov<\/a> says all of Northampton County is under a drought, with 79.3% of the county considered in severe drought and the southernmost 20.7% under moderate drought.<\/p>\n

Lehigh County, the federal monitor says, is split about even between severe and moderate drought \u2014 again with the most dire conditions across the county\u2019s northern communities.<\/p>\n

Some relief is expected, according to the National Weather Service<\/a>, though it won\u2019t come close to erasing precipitation deficits that have lingered since fall 2024.<\/p>\n

Rain is expected to develop Wednesday afternoon as a warm front lifts northward through the area, then taper off in the evening, totaling less than one-tenth of an inch.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, it is light rain showers \u2014 it\u2019s not anything heavy,\u201d meteorologist Bobby Martrich said in a forecast video Tuesday<\/a> for his Lehigh Valley-based EPAWA Weather Consulting LLC. \u201cSo I don\u2019t want you to get excited, thinking, \u2018Oh, well, we\u2019re going to have rain clearing out all the salt we have all over the place.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

A low pressure system crossing the area Friday will bring another round of rain. Some mixed precipitation and light icing are possible from the I-78 corridor northward, with the I-80 corridor in the Poconos having the highest potential for light icing impacts. New rainfall amounts are expected to be around a half-inch across the region.<\/p>\n

MORE: Lehigh Valley weather: Fog clearing, rain arrives midweek<\/a><\/p>\n

As of Tuesday, the weather service\u2019s climate station at Lehigh Valley International Airport had recorded just 0.12 of an inch of precipitation for the first half of February. That\u2019s 92% less than the normal 1.55 inches month-to-date.<\/p>\n

Since Jan. 1, the weather service reports 2.64 inches of precipitation at the airport outside Allentown \u2014 a little more than half of the normal 4.85 inches through mid-February.<\/p>\n

Since Sept. 1, 2024, the airport has recorded 58.15 inches of precipitation \u2014 about two-thirds of the normal 86.26 inches for that period through mid-February 2026.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania\u2019s Drought Watch covers 40 counties: Adams, Beaver, Bedford, Berks, Bradford, Butler, Cambria, Carbon, Chester, Clarion, Clearfield, Clinton, Cumberland, 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

The Lehigh County Authority on Feb. 1 asked its customers to \u201ctake immediate steps to conserve water<\/a> and remain alert for signs of potential leaks.\u201d <\/p>\n

And American Water on Feb. 4 issued a mandatory 10-15% water conservation order<\/a> for its 3,700 or so customers in Northampton County\u2019s Bangor and Roseto boroughs and Plainfield, Upper Mount Bethel and Washington townships. <\/p>\n

Looking ahead to next weekend, a significant winter storm is possible Sunday<\/a> as low pressure deepens and slides west to east, exiting off the northern Mid-Atlantic coast. This system has potential for accumulating widespread snowfall across the region, though the exact track remains uncertain. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lehigh Valley utility providers are asking or ordering customers to conserve water as Lehigh and Northampton counties remain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120],"class_list":{"0":"post-116460","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-allentown","9":"tag-allentown-headlines","10":"tag-allentown-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116460","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=116460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}