Drought plagues most of Northeast, bringing high fire risk

Dry, unseasonably warm conditions have plunged much of the Northeast into drought, fueling wildfires. October was one of the driest months on record in the U.S.

Dry and unseasonably warm conditions in the Northeast have plunged much of the region into drought, fueling wildfires in New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts.

October ended as one of the driest months on record in the U.S., according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The Northeast, in particular, saw scant precipitation.

Cities such as Philadelphia; Newark, New Jersey; Wilmington, Delaware; and Norfolk, Virginia, recorded no rain at all in October, according to the Southeast Regional Climate Center, which collects precipitation data from more than 1,400 weather stations across the country. Several cities, including Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., set new records for the number of consecutive October days without any measurable rainfall.

A forest fire Wednesday in Evesham, N.J. N.J. Dept. of Environmental Protection via AP“This is a region that we don’t typically associate with drought,” said Benjamin Cook, an adjunct research scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York. “To have such persistent periods of really intense drought conditions is not very common.”

The dry spell has not let up in the first week of November, with much of the region in the grips of “severe” drought, as classified by the U.S. Drought Monitor, which tracks conditions nationwide and releases weekly color-coded maps to show the extent and intensity of drought.

https://www.nbcnews.com/weather/heat/drought-northeast-fire-risk-rcna178666

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