Drought Continues

 

I am sitting inside today hoping for rain with a minor eye injury preventing me from doing any significant reading hanging out in bright lights. So, I’m revisiting drought conditions in Virginia. Virginia generally receives about 44 inches of precipitation per year in Prince William County and over 40 inches in all of the Commonwealth, and is historically considered “water rich" area. However, droughts are not uncommon, and Virginia has a history of multi-year droughts. The graph below shows the frequency of drought years (yellow to red colors) to wet years (blue shades) from 1895 to the present in Virginia.

 

Virginia | Drought.gov

The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), in coordination with the Virginia Drought Monitoring Task Force, has expanded the drought warning advisory to now include 60 counties and cities, and has maintained a drought watch advisory for 32 counties and cities. Due to improving conditions related to recent precipitation in Southeast Virginia, the drought watch advisory previously issued for the Chowan and Southeast Virginia has been lifted. All other regions within the Commonwealth remain affected by drought. Continued precipitation shortfalls in combination with sustained high temperatures have resulted in rapid intensification of drought throughout the majority of the Commonwealth.

Drought conditions can also develop rapidly, especially when the lack of rain and high temperatures combine to quickly increase the loss of water from the landscape via evapotranspiration. There is increased regional awareness of how these rapid-onset droughts, sometimes referred to as "flash droughts." Virginia experienced a high-impact drought during the late summer and fall of 2023 that was a primary factor in several community water restrictions and several major wildfires, including the Matts Creek Fire in the Jefferson National Forest. Wildfires are not common in Virginia.

This map shows precipitation for the past 60 days as a percentage of the historical average (1991–2020) for the same time period in Northern Virginia. The counties are outlined with their familiar shapes. Green/blue shades indicate above-normal precipitation, while brown shades indicate below-normal precipitation. (Because climate is always changing, all historical averages reflect the most recent past 30 years.)

 

 

This map shows the average maximum daily temperature for the past 30 days compared to the historical average (1991–2020) for the same 30 days. Negative values (blue hues) indicate colder than normal temperatures, and positive values (red hues) indicate warmer than normal temperatures.