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Hold off turning on the lawn sprinkler or watering that flower bed.
After a particularly dry start to the summer and two years of below-average rainfall, Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) Secretary Rebecca Tepper announced a statewide drought Thursday. The new designation prohibits residents from nonessential outdoor water, although more water restrictions could be coming down the pike.
Massachusetts’ drought comes during an El Niño summer, which is already characterized by high heat and relatively dry conditions. Southeastern Massachusetts has been in a Level 2 “significant drought” since earlier this spring, having received between 50% and 75% of its normal rainfall the past several months.
State officials recommend that residents in an area with significant drought limit their overall water use and look to fix any indoor leaks, which account for 60% of indoor use. Larger buildings and businesses should also conduct water audits to find ways to save.
Although residents should abide by the outdoor water restrictions, New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell said in a news release that the city’s own drinking water supply, the Assawompset Pond Complex in Lakeville and Rochester, remains at a healthy level.
The last time the state weathered a severe drought was in the 1980s, although a major drought in 2016 and 2017 took a toll on many South Coast farmers.
This year’s conditions bear multiple similarities to the drought 10 years ago. The winter of 2015 brought above-average snowfall with a major blizzard, followed by a strong El Niño summer in 2016. There was also a drought last year.
To dig itself out of a rain deficit, the city of Providence would need about five inches of rainfall, said Hayden Frank, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Boston/Norton office. In Boston, the other nearest national weather station, that number is closer to nine inches.
But how that rainfall happens matters just as much as the amount. A large and sudden storm, for example, would likely just lead to flooding that wouldn’t get absorbed into the ground, Frank said.
“Usually the best way for droughts to improve is through a steady amount of rain over a significant period of time,” Frank said. “That’s what really gets river levels back up to normal stages.”
Residents can’t even take comfort in knowing that a drier summer will mean fewer mosquitos. Bristol County Mosquito Control Project Superintendent Priscilla Matton said mosquito levels have remained fairly consistent the past five years, thanks in part to the wetter conditions this past winter that help house the skeeters in their larval stage.
What’s more, she added, is that drought conditions can actually increase the spread of West Nile Virus. West Nile Virus is carried by songbird species such as the American Robin and spread to humans via the mosquitos that feed on them.
Dry conditions help facilitate interactions between the three species, Matton said.
“Where do you find water in the hot, dry summers?” Matton said. “You find it in people’s yards, in the catch basins, but not so much in the environment. What that does is that pushes the mosquitos in the same environment as the birds, because they’re competing for the same water sources.”
Still, Frank says the current drought conditions in New England shouldn’t yet spark alarm.
“The good news for New England is that we’re in an area geographically, where it’s very hard to go an entire year or year and a half with below-normal rainfall,” Frank said. “Even though our drought can be significant, they usually do break up, whereas in other parts of the country, they can go on for years…. We’ll have to see how the winter unfolds.”
Email Brooke Kushwaha at bkushwaha@newbedfordlight.org.
The natural world is sending a message but we are and have been consistently ignoring it. We are now encouraged to wear masks outdoors because the smoke in the air is dangerous especially for the elderly and the youth; our water supplies are drying up across the country; sewage and water treatment plants are at or approaching capacity; trash is polluting our oceans and soils; plant and animal species are disappearing;
the temperatures continue to rise and yet we do little to address these critical areas. The world is changing but we refuse to understand what that means. This is not about politics. This is about survival.
Well the way things are going in this city it does not look good for anyone. Has the Mayor figured out how $50 Million Dollars was blown and leaving the city the city with $32 Million Dollar Deficit? In Dec 2025 we had a $18 Million Dollar Surplus and then the 2027 budget showed a $32 Million Dollar deficit. This is a SWING of $50 MILLION DOLLARS and no one has an explanation or can tell us where the money went, or what happened.
The city books are open.
Watch a council meeting, the books are not open, stop with the nonsense already.