Rain not enough to ease NJ drought worries

Drenching downpours in early October and scattered showers during the past week were not enough to ease the drought worries that have plagued New Jersey this year.

That's what the latest maps, released Thursday by the U.S. Drought Monitor, are showing.

This drought map, released Thursday, Nov. 12, shows 36 percent of the Garden State (yellow) continues to be abnormally dry and nearly 18 percent of the state (orange-cream color) has moderate drought conditions.


The maps indicate 36 percent of the Garden State continues to be abnormally dry and nearly 18 percent of the state has moderate drought conditions — just one stage below a severe drought. The affected areas are all in Central and Northern New Jersey, from Ocean County up to Sussex County.

"We've been in a somewhat static situation" during the past few weeks, said David Robinson, the state climatologist at Rutgers University. The heaviest rain that fell the past two days — about 1 to 2 inches — was concentrated along the Shore and southern New Jersey, so it helped Monmouth County but did little to help the counties further north.