Despite several storms in recent weeks, the Delaware River Basin continues under a drought emergency as declared by the Delaware River Basin Commission. That declaration is based on the levels of the reservoirs in New York State that feed the Delaware River.

Just to give you a sense of how much water we're talking about - if this were a typical year, those reservoirs would contain about 220 billion gallons of water right now. Instead, they're currently holding less than half that average, only about 90 billion gallons. As far as our area is concerned, here's the percentage of average precipitation that's fallen in the last six months for each county. In most cases, the numbers are around 50% - in other words, we've only received half the "normal" rainfall.

If there's a positive side to this, it's that winter is generally the driest time of the year anyway, and with the sun relatively low in the sky, evaporation rates are low as well. This drought's impact will be much worse if these same deficit conditions persist into spring and summer.