These past few weeks, something has felt off in NYC. New Yorkers are swapping sweaters for shorts as the five boroughs are scorched by unseasonably high temperatures, and a near constant cloudless sky has only made it feel hotter.
On November 6, after the warmest election day since the 1930s, temperatures rose to a startling 81 degrees. Two days later, a patch of forest in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park burst into flames, just one in a series of drought-caused bush fires in and around the city (including blazes in South Brooklyn, Van Cortlandt Park, New Jersey, Upstate, and Connecticut). The next morning, New Yorkers woke up to dangerously poor air quality as smoke hung low over rooftops; rooftops that hadn’t felt the touch of substantial rainfall in over a month.
September and October 2024 were the driest on record, with a meager 1.59 inches of rain measured by a Central Park weather observatory that keeps track of temperature, precipitation, and more. The rainfall total for September and October was the lowest ever recorded since the observatory started tracking rainfall in 1869.
Throughout upstate New York, the reservoirs that provide water to the Big Apple are slowly draining. The Ashokan Reservoir, which usually provides nearly half of NYC’s water, plummeted to 73.6% capacity on November 8th. The nearby Schoharie Reservoir fell to 32.1%. Water levels in the Roundout Reservoir fell to 66.3%, 63.4% in the Pepacton Reservoir, 48.5% in the Cannonsville Reservoir, and 36.1% in the Neversink Reservoir.
To make matters worse, half of the city’s usual water supply is off limits until June as the NYC Department of Environmental Protection works to patch leaks in the Delaware Aqueduct, an 85 mile tunnel that, when working properly, provides 600 million gallons of water daily. This means that the city is drawing more water from the Croton System: a series of reservoirs in Putnam, Dutchess, and Westchester counties. As of November 8th, this system is at 81.2% Capacity. However, this could change as the aforementioned counties are some of the hardest hit by the current drought. Experts say that there is no danger of a water crisis until water levels fall below 45% in all reservoirs collectively, so there is no need for panic yet.
New York isn’t the only place that’s been impacted by this record-shattering dry spell. According to the US Drought Monitor, as of November 5th much of the country is undergoing “abnormally dry” conditions, with parts of Montana, Texas, Ohio, and West Virginia experiencing an “exceptional drought”.
Other states are experiencing unusually high temperatures as well. Climate Central, a non-profit dedicated to climate research, conducted a study in which they analyzed the temperatures of 191 American cities during October. They found that 185 of these cities saw warmer than usual weather, 19 of which experienced their warmest October ever recorded.
The drought many Americans are experiencing is an example of the rapidly-changing weather extremes caused by climate change. Take the Southwest, for example. This region saw record-breaking rainfall during the catastrophic Hurricane Helene in September. Now, the same communities that were inundated with floods just weeks ago are parched with drought.
Should you be worried about this drought? Experts aren’t sounding the alarm, at least not yet. Richard Tinker is a drought specialist who works for the National Weather Service. He says he is “cautiously optimistic” about our current situation, explaining that “we’re a long, long way” from completely running out of water.
Meteorologists will be keeping an eye on snowfall and rainfall totals during winter and spring, as this is what will determine whether our current drought will develop into something much worse. Upmanu Lall, who is the director of Columbia University’s Water Center, noted that the “period between January and May is what leads to the filling of reservoirs every single year. That’s the part that we will have to wait and see how it transpires.” Many are optimistic that we will see more precipitation soon. The Climate Prediction Center, run by the National Weather Service, writes that “Drought is anticipated to eventually end for portions of the Mid-Atlantic and New England during the next few months.”
For now, remember to conserve water by taking shorter showers, turning the water off when brushing your teeth, and running the dishwasher only when it’s full. It’s extremely important that we monitor our water use to ensure that the effects of this drought remain minimal.