If you’re not concerned about the extreme drought on the Jersey Shore, consider this: October was the driest month in New Jersey in the past 130 years – the driest of the past 1,558 months.
This dry spell was so dry that it landed on State Climatologist Dave Robinson’s list of the ten most notable weather events during his 33-year career, along with Superstorm Sandy, Hurricane Ida and the Blizzard of 1996.
The extreme drought has spread across the Pinelands and includes parts of the Atlantic Ocean, Burlington, Ocean County and a small portion of Cumberland County, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
Monmouth and the northern part of Ocean County are experiencing severe drought, officials said.
Everywhere else in New Jersey is experiencing moderate (D1) to severe drought (D2).
More: New Jersey is implementing Phase 3 fire safety restrictions statewide
The last time New Jersey reached the extreme drought level (D3) was in the fall of 2002, Robinson said. Since drought monitoring data began to be collected in 2000, the country has experienced one exceptional drought level (D4), in 2002 for one week.
Robinson and other experts will weigh next week on whether the state should move from a drought warning to a drought alert — an indicator separate from the one used by the U.S. Drought Monitor. The next step for New Jersey would be a drought crisis, but rain expected in the coming week could worsen that outlook.
The last drought crisis was in 2002.
“We are still a long way from consumer restrictions on water,” Robinson said. And based on weather patterns over the past two decades, “the rain could come in hard before the drought lasts very long.”
It’s all fueled by climate change, he said: intense, short-lived droughts, followed by heavy rains and sometimes floods.
“Short-term variability has been key,” he said. ‘Some would say we were too late. Climatologists don’t like that word. But I think the pattern we’ve seen over the past 20 years is related to our warming climate, and prolonged droughts of a year or more are becoming less and less common. .”
The average precipitation for the state in October was 0.02 inches. The average for October over the past 30 years is 4.19 inches of rain, Robinson said.
“September really got the ball rolling,” he said. “If you look at month combinations going back to 1895, there has been nothing close to September and October of 2024 in terms of drought.”
From Friday:
Trenton has not had any measurable rain in 41 days. The previous record was 36, in the fall of 1924.
Atlantic City Municipal Airport in Pomona has been without any for 37 days. The previous record was 34 days in 1995.
Newark has gone 40 days without measurable rainfall as of Friday. The record was 26 days in the spring of 1949.
The cause of all this dry weather is a “strong ridge of high pressure” over the state that has remained in place for six weeks, Robinson said. Those pressure systems cut both ways.
“It creates its own dry weather, but it also deflects wet weather,” by getting in the way of storms, he said.
New Jersey is expected to see three-quarters to an inch and a half of rain over the next seven days, he said.
How much of a dent that will make in the drought remains to be seen, but it could help.
“You can’t get drier than completely dry,” Robinson said.
Ken Serrano covers crime, breaking news and investigations. Reach him at 732-643-4029 or at kserrano@gannettnj.com.
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Extreme drought on Jersey Shore could soon be cooled by rain: official
