Drought Worsens in New Hampshire

The hot, dry New Hampshire summer keeps getting worse. A drought continues to expand and even worsen in some areas, with part of Southern NH now under an Extreme Drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. The classification signals a severe rainfall deficit.

Massachusetts last week was issued it's first Extreme Drought, and this week that expanded to 17 percent of the state.

The latest notice comes slightly more than two weeks after an alert was issued by the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services warning residents in nearly the entire state to conserve water after a state climatologist informed officials that the drought would probably last through the fall.

Officials noted that a combination of a below average snowpack in the spring, little precipitation to recharge the groundwater, an increase of evapotranspiration in the summer, and the inability of New Hampshire watersheds to store large volumes of water due to their geology, has landed the northern half of the state in abnormally dry conditions and the southern half in severe drought.

A few days after that alert, Gov. Maggie Hassan, D-Exeter, requested a federal drought disaster designation for three counties in the state that - Rockingham, Grafton, and Strafford counties - where farmers are having problems with crop production losses, specifically, mixed forage alfalfa/grass, pumpkins and blueberries.