{"id":144399,"date":"2025-09-09T15:49:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T15:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/144399\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T15:49:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T15:49:12","slug":"new-england-weekend-rain-has-eased-persistent-drought-in-spots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/144399\/","title":{"rendered":"New England weekend rain has eased persistent drought in spots"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s always an interesting topic to write about \u2014 when is it going to rain next? I imagine if you surveyed 10 people, you\u2019d probably get seven or eight of them saying that any lack of rain is perfect and they don\u2019t really think about the fact that it\u2019s been dry. The other 20 percent probably notice burned-out lawns and drooping plants and would like to see a little bit of rain. <\/p>\n

Well, we did see quite a bit of much-needed rain this past weekend. Some areas of Massachusetts were hit with upwards of 2 to 3 inches of precipitation. Where I live, we received 1.6 inches Saturday and Sunday, and\u2029I was very happy about that. That\u2019s really going to be a big help with the expanding drought<\/a>, especially with the relatively cool temperatures and the lower sun angle. The moisture is not going to evaporate nearly as quickly as it would have just four weeks ago, so it\u2019s good news. <\/p>\n

But more days of good soaking rains would turn the tide here.<\/p>\n

For Boston and most of Southern New England, where there\u2019s actually very little official drought compared to other parts of New England, the weekend rain will ensure that it doesn\u2019t expand much into the region. Most of Massachusetts is actually either abnormally dry or close to normal in terms of drought status. The exception is Cape Cod, where the recent deluge of rain unfortunately hasn\u2019t been enough to pull the peninsula out of its drought<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe percentage of normal precipitation across New England, with 100 percent being the average. This past weekend’s heavy rains have helped some areas, but others remain exceptionally dry.Boston Globe<\/p>\n

In Northern New England, the drought is more significant, with \u201csevere drought\u201d now affecting New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont, according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor<\/a>. The weekend rain has helped, but you really need more days of substantial rainfall to alleviate the excessively dry conditions there. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe latest drought monitor shows extensive drought plaguing Northern New England.Boston Globe<\/p>\n

If you think back to our wet spring, we had weekend after weekend with rainfall, and even if it wasn\u2019t a lot, it was still certainly damp. The summer months provided nearly the opposite weather. Most weekends have been dry, until this past weekend. A persistent area of high pressure at all levels of the atmosphere had been keeping any organized rainfall at bay. While there have been some scattered showers and even downpours over the past couple of months, it\u2019s been basically dry. <\/p>\n

This week\u2019s dry pattern will generally continue for the next few days as high pressure limits rainfall potential. If we did get any rain, it will be sparse should any shower activity get near New England. Keep in mind, even in areas where drought is almost nonexistent, you still need to water if you\u2019re moving or starting any new plants in the ground, since the topsoil is abnormally dry. <\/p>\n

Long-range rainfall prospects<\/p>\n

One way in which we could see more significant rainfall is from a tropical system: As the high-pressure systems pass offshore, a tropical system moves northward. In this case, the southerly flow on the left side of high pressure could pull in some moisture out of the tropics, changing the equation from our dry weather. However, the timing on these types of systems has to be perfect, otherwise the tropical storms end up going out to sea.<\/p>\n

\"NewNew England can expect rainfall to be less than average later this month.Boston Globe\"FallFall may end up with about average precipitation across New England.Boston Globe<\/p>\n

If more heavy rains don\u2019t materialize, the drought, which is worsening across parts of Northern New England, could expand, eventually enveloping more of Southern New England. <\/p>\n

Of course, the bonus of having dry weather is that as kids are back in school and football, soccer, track meets, and other outdoor events are underway, the weather is completely cooperating. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s always an interesting topic to write about \u2014 when is it going to rain next? I imagine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79,6322],"class_list":{"0":"post-144399","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-wildfire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}