{"id":658691,"date":"2026-05-22T15:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T15:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/658691\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T15:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T15:32:09","slug":"nj-drought-warning-in-effect-residents-urged-to-conserve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/658691\/","title":{"rendered":"NJ drought warning in effect; residents urged to conserve"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story is part of the WHYY News Climate Desk<\/a>, bringing you news and solutions for our changing region.\n<\/p>\n

From the Poconos to the Jersey Shore to the mouth of the Delaware Bay, what do you want to know about climate change? What would you like us to cover? Get in touch<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

As summer begins, New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill is urging residents to limit lawn watering, and hand water flowers and shrubs <\/a>as a drought warning<\/a> continues. The warning, in place since December 2025, could turn into a drought emergency if conditions do not improve. The state has suffered eight consecutive months of below-normal rainfall, according to officials.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cNew Jersey is experiencing a chronic water supply drought, the scale of which we haven\u2019t seen in more than twenty years,\u201d state geologist Steven Domber said in a statement issued earlier this month. \u201cThe indicators that we track closely are showing persistently dry conditions. With uncertainty for rainfall in the coming months, we need residents to conserve water today, to ensure we have enough to sustain our needs over the summer.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

The Department of Environmental Protection uses a variety of indicators to determine drought levels, including precipitation, stream flows, reservoir levels, ground water levels and demand.\n<\/p>\n

In addition to the last two months, officials say, the state \u201cexperienced below normal precipitation for 20 of the last 24 months since September 2024,\u201d despite heavy snowfall events this past winter that helped restore reservoirs in North Jersey.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we saw a little relief over the winter, New Jersey is feeling the effects of nearly two years of below-normal precipitation,\u201d Sherrill said in a statement earlier this month. She urged residents to voluntarily conserve water.\n<\/p>\n

New Jersey state climatologist David Robinson said that since precipitation has been below normal for most of the last 24 months, the recent winter weather did not provide enough water to help restore streams and groundwater.\n<\/p>\n

Should a drought emergency be declared, mandatory water restrictions would be put in place. The last drought emergency lasted almost a year, between March 2002 and January 2003.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story is part of the WHYY News Climate Desk, bringing you news and solutions for our changing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[15229,192,79,34970],"class_list":["post-658691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-drought","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-whyy-news-climate-desk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658691","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=658691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}