Central Mass. pulls out of monthslong drought as other areas of New England improve

Boston Globe

09-05-2025

The state also downgraded the Boston area and the rest of the northeast region to a 'mild drought,' although Cape Cod and the islands remain at a Level 2 'significant drought.' 'Over the past three months, the Cape and Islands regions have experienced 20-40 percent below-average precipitation,' the state said Friday.
Massachusetts environment officials said Friday that the central part of the state has pulled out of the monthslong drought while other parts continue to show improvement.
Mass. Department of Energy and Environmental Affairs
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This recent report from the state seems in line with the federal Drought Monitor, which was released Thursday, and also showed a decline in our drought across New England. The numbers are down and we're moving in a better direction.
The US Drought Monitor has shown improvement in the drought situation across New England.
US Drought Monitor
The European model, our most accurate, shows wetter than average conditions heading into Memorial Day weekend. Another great sign that this cycle of drought is nearly over.
Rainfall is expected to be above average in the coming two weeks.
WeatherBell
This week, I listened in on the Massachusetts Drought Management Task Force's monthly call and it was, to be honest, quite enlightening. There were at least two dozen or so experts, including hydrologists, on the call from various parts of the state, all with their specific areas of expertise, contributing to the ultimate decision on which regions should remain in this monthslong drought or whether a drought level should be lowered.
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It felt like what I imagined a Federal Reserve meeting is like, where you have different experts talking about different variables in the economy and people deciding whether or not you're going to raise interest rates, lower them, or leave them the same. Different municipalities have to react differently to the various drought statuses so the impact to individual homeowners is real. Although we've recently seen average or above average rainfall, some towns still have outdoor water restrictions.
There's a lot of variables at stake: from streamflow to groundwater to average precipitation. Different areas even within a region might have conflicting information, with one part of a region having recovered groundwater better than another, so it's a little bit of an inexact science.
For those of us gardening, there's plenty of moisture in the ground right now. I was moving some things this week and noticed how saturated the soil felt. Deep below where I'm planting at the groundwater level, some areas have still not completely recovered from the drought last fall and winter. This is especially true over the Cape and the islands, where it's a different climate zone and the soils are also very different, so drought can have a bigger impact.
Whether or not we have adequate precipitation in the summer months is a bit of guesswork. What I do know is that after the multi-year droughts of the 1960s, the weather eventually balances. In our warming climate, precipitation is actually forecast to be greater but also interspersed with more frequent extremes of less precipitation.
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In other words, over the course of a year or 18 months, precipitation may look quite normal, but within that timeframe, there can be dramatic wet or dry periods. No one can control the weather, but we can be smart in those periods when the weather is seemingly erratic, and around here, that's a lot.