A drought on the East Coast which began in August has brought
appeals to conserve water. Weather forecasters say they see
no end soon to the dry spell.
The unusual dryness has also fueled brush fires and lowered
reservoirs. The last six weeks have seen less than a quarter
of the normal precipitation in the Eastern U.S.
This October was the third driest on record for that month in
Connecticut and New Jersey; the fourth driest in Delaware,
Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Virginia; and the fifth
driest in Maryland, according to the National Drought
Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska at
Lincoln.
A National Weather Service meteorologist said that the
problem is that the moisture from the Atlantic and the Gulf
of Mexico is cut off from coming inland.
Forest fires in the Appalachians have been the worst in a
decade. Fires have burned 146,500 acres in Kentucky this
year. Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, the Carolinas and
Tennessee have also suffered from many more fires than
normal.
Three New York City reservoirs contained about 91 billion
gallons of water combined, 58 billion gallons below normal
and only 33 percent of capacity.
