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The shoreline has dried up on Lake Champlain at Colchester Point, Vermont. Photo by Lake Champlain Lakekeeper Julie Silverman<\/p>\n
Lake Placid resident Art Lussi has similar observations on the New York side. He regularly visits Lake Champlain in the summer months to kite surf at Ausable Point in Peru and near Plattsburgh.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my 25 years of kiting and windsurfing, it hasn\u2019t been this low,\u201d he said. \u201cIt approaches this level sometimes in late September but never in August.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
USGS gauges recorded Lake Champlain water levels at Port Henry at 93.28 feet on Thursday and 93.45 on Friday <\/a>after a rainfall.\u00a0 The record low there of 92.09 feet was recorded in December 1908.<\/p>\n The Adirondack Explorer thanks its advertising partners. Become one of them<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very low. It\u2019s not down to the level of a record or all time low, but it\u2019s below average for what we typically see, especially this time of year,\u201d said Jessica Storm, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Burlington.<\/p>\n On Thursday, the Nature Weather Service announced that parts of Essex County had reached severe drought status<\/a>, joining several counties in Vermont, most of New Hampshire and all of southern Maine. Severe is the third most serious draught status on the U.S. Drought Monitor on a scale that includes five levels.\u00a0<\/p>\n On Friday, the New York Mesonet precipitation maps showed the town of Essex received only 4.38 inches of rain in the past 90 days while Ticonderoga got 4.69 inches. By comparison, the map shows interior Adirondack sites, including Tupper Lake and Saranac Lake, receiving between roughly 7 to 10 inches.\u00a0<\/p>\n In August, Essex received just under an inch of rain, about three inches less than normal.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Adirondack Explorer thanks its advertising partners. Become one of them<\/a>.<\/p>\n But it isn\u2019t just Essex County and Lake Champlain that is dry. NWS has declared four other Adirondack counties \u2014 St. Lawrence, Franklin, Clinton and Essex \u2014 to be partially or fully in moderate drought stage while most of Franklin, southern St. Lawrence, and sections of Clinton were considered abnormally dry. USGS river gauges throughout the region have recorded water flows on some Adirondack rivers at some of their lowest levels in 25 years, with others at levels only seen every few years.<\/p>\n Scott McKim, science manager with Atmospheric Sciences Research Center at Whiteface Mountain Field Station, said weather stations in Gabriels and Whiteface have received less rain than normal for the year overall, particularly in August.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re roughly six inches below normal from the calendar year,\u201d McKim said. \u201cBut that doesn\u2019t paint the full picture, because we inherited a bit of a deficit going back last fall and winter.\u201d<\/p>\n Willsboro Supervisor Shaun Gillilland, chair of the Essex County Board of Supervisors, has a farm on the Boquet River<\/a> and has noticed the drought on his property.<\/p>\nA chart of average daily river discharge on the Boquet River near Willsboro since 2000, highlighting how this year\u2019s level compares, according to USGS gauge data. Graphic by Zachary Matson<\/p>\nA chart of the lowest daily river discharge for each year since 2000 on the Ausable River near Ausable Forks since 2000, highlighting how this year\u2019s level compares, according to USGS gauge data. Graphic by Zachary Matson<\/p>\n