Centre County’s 6-week drought has bordered on historic. But here’s why, long-term, you shouldn’t panic
Lawns have grown yellow, crops are struggling, and streams have shrunk — the result of a near-unprecedented Centre County drought over the last six weeks or so.
The county was placed under a “drought watch” Friday, leading Pennsylvania American Water to ask residents to scale back their water usage by 5%. But, according to two local meteorologists, the drought hasn’t grown dire just yet, even if it might seem that way based on quick drives past scorched golf courses and wilted gardens.
“It’s a bit of a culture shock around here because we’ve had so many wet summers,” said Steve Seman, a Penn State assistant teaching professor of meteorology and atmospheric science. “It was just 2018 and you couldn’t get things to stop growing, and now everyone’s lawn has long since been dead. It’s a shock to the system.”
Less than 2 inches of rainfall have accumulated from the start of July until noon Monday, according to information from the National Climate Data Center, making July and August so far the driest in State College since records were kept starting in 1895. But the drought remains a short-term issue — and is not yet a long-term problem — because the county saw so much precipitation in the preceding months.
According to Seman, State College was actually still above its annual rainfall average through July. Centre County was about 1.5 inches below its average during that same time period. That’s important because long-term droughts tend to go hand-in-hand with a lack of groundwater but, so far, that hasn’t been an issue.
Centre County’s two observation wells — which were both checked in the past week — are at normal levels and above-normal levels, respectively, per the United States Geological Survey.
“It’s interesting to note that, up until June, we were doing pretty well,” said Dave Dombek, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather. “In fact, the June rainfall for State College was 4.94 inches vs. 4.11 normally, so we had a pretty good June. When we got into July, it’s just been like flipping the switch.”
That might not be a consolation to farmers right now, but the fact is that summer fluctuation from lots of rain to little rain is not that uncommon. This is just an extreme. Any short-term deficit could be knocked out in a few weeks, if the weather cooperated, the meteorologists said.
“A couple rains, and things will look dramatically different,” Dombek added. ”It wouldn’t take too much.”
As of Monday afternoon, only scattered thunderstorms were in this week’s forecast — although both experts said Centre County could see some significant moisture as early as this weekend. Of course, that’s dependent on whether Tropical Storm Laura makes its way farther north.
If it doesn’t, Centre County’s dry weather could continue. Some parts of the county are doing better than others, due to the scattered nature of storms the past six weeks, but it’s not time to hit the proverbial panic button just yet.
“It’s fair to say there should be a level of awareness because it has been dry for a short period of time,” Seman said. “It isn’t a dire situation yet, for any kind of long-term problems.
“But keep an eye on whether those rainfall totals start to come back in the next few weeks as we head into the fall.”
This story was originally published August 24, 2020 at 4:15 PM.
