Drought — Interior Cumberland Highlands, Maine

2020-09-01 to 2020-09-30 · Interior Cumberland Highlands, Maine

Event narrative

Drought continued to expand and intensified through the month of September with the state of Maine recording the driest September on record. D2 severe drought expanded to cover all of Western Maine by the end of the month. In addition, an area of D3 extreme drought developed across York County and southwest Cumberland County by the end of the month. Since Mid-May Portland was 8.5 below normal while Augusta was 5.75 below normal. Hydrologic conditions continued to worsen in September on non-regulated rivers with 90% of USGS river gaging stations below normal and a few sites at record lows for the end of September. Reservoir levels on the Androscoggin and Kennebec Rivers remained near normal due to decreased flow and proper water management on these systems. Numerous reports of natural lake levels were well below normal though.. In Maine of the 10 monitoring wells maintained by the USGS in western Maine 5 are below normal, 1 is much below normal, 4 are in the normal range. In Maine, all 16 counties reported dry wells with 190 being reported to state agencies. The USDA Farm Service Agency reported every county in Maine, except Knox, has received a drought declaration. Crops across Maine have been hurt by the dry weather. Corn, potatoes, blueberries, barley and forage crops are the most affected. Farmers are concerned about having enough forage for their livestock to get through the winter. State level agriculture assistance programs, not counting insurance claims, have paid out over $500,000.

Wider weather episode

Dry conditions developed rapidly across western Maine starting in the middle of May. The period May 16 to June 25 was exceedingly dry. There was some relief in late June and July, especially in the Western Maine Mountains and parts of the Mid-Coast. Southern Maine. By the middle of August dry conditions set in again with September being exceedingly dry with some locations reporting their driest September on record. The National Centers for Environmental Information reported that September was the driest on record for Maine. D2 severe drought was confined to parts of York and Somerset County at the beginning of the September. The D2 drought rapidly expanded into Oxford, Cumberland, Androscoggin and Franklin Counties by the middle of September. By the end of September D2 drought expanded across all of Western Maine, with a D3 extreme drought area developing across York and parts of Cumberland Counties.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 922892. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.