Record number of states experiencing drought

Almost the entire United States faced drought conditions during the last week of October.

Only Alaska and Kentucky did not have at least moderate drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor system.

The past four months were consistently warmer than normal over a wide swath of the country, said Rich Tinker, a drought specialist with the National Weather Service. But in June, while roughly a quarter of the country was dry to some degree, he said, now 87% of the nation is.

“Drought in many parts of the country and the world is becoming more frequent, longer and more severe,” said Erica Fleishman, director of the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute and a professor at Oregon State University.

Dry conditions over the past few months led New York City on Saturday to urge residents to start conserving “every drop possible.”

Last month was the driest October since record keeping began in 1869, according to the city, which issued a drought watch for the 9.8 million people who rely on the city’s water supply. The last time a watch was issued was in 2001.

Rohit Aggarwala, the city’s chief climate officer and commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection, noted that the problem is one of quantity, not quality. The city’s upstate reservoirs are below two-thirds full, and they are normally more than three-quarters full in the fall. But, he said, the water is completely safe to drink.

Even after Hurricane Helene dropped huge amounts of destructive rain across the Southeast, the region is experiencing drought. Not much rain has fallen since the storm and warmer temperatures mean higher evaporation rates and drier soils.

Drought doesn’t just come from a lack of precipitation like rain or snow. Drought conditions are driven by abnormally high temperatures that can quickly suck moisture from the atmosphere and the ground.

Even if the total amount of precipitation stays the same or increases a bit, drought can occur. That is especially true as rain events get more episodic, with heavier deluges over a smaller number of events. When all the water comes at once, it’s more difficult for soil to soak it up or for water storage to contain it.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.