UNIVERSITY PARK – Bryan Swistock has been closely watching Pennsylvania’s weather and monitoring precipitation in the state for a long time, but he hasn’t seen a summer like this one in the two decades that he has been paying attention.
Usually, according to the water-resources extension specialist in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, thunderstorms are random events that pop up in different places and over time, the precipitation they deliver covers the landscape more or less evenly — even in dry summers. But that has not been the case this year.
And that, Swistock believes, is a big reason why the state Department of Environmental Protection declared a drought watch for 58 counties on Aug. 6. “The thing that is most striking to me — what makes this summer different from any other I can remember — is that it seems like the same places are getting hit by thunderstorms and others keep getting missed by the rain. This year it is just incredible how it has been happening.”
Swistock sees evidence of storms repeatedly missing the same areas in central Pennsylvania where he lives. “You drive down the road and one agricultural field looks really good and it is obvious it has gotten enough precipitation, but you go a mile or two farther and you see brown fields and stunted crops that are dying from the lack of rain,” he said.
“From what I have seen and heard, it’s that way all over the state.”
Swistock admits he has no idea why thunderstorms are hitting the same places repeatedly, and he has no scientific data to back up his theory, but he notes that many farmers agree with him. “The real problem this summer is that the weather systems have been diving deep into the South into places such as Texas — where they have been getting too much rain — and then sliding to our north up into New England, where they have gotten plenty of rain.”
It’s well known that thunderstorms often lose their punch coming down off the Allegheny Plateau, moving east across Somerset, Cambria and Clearfield counties, Swistock explained. “But for some reason, the storms this summer are really dying out coming off the plateau, and that has resulted in the central part of the state being the driest,” he says.
Ending a dry summer, Pennsylvania is in the familiar situation of hoping that fall will bring moisture-laden remnants of tropical storms to break a growing drought. “We aren’t hoping for hurricanes that result in wind damage or flooding, obviously — and we have had a lot of those over the years,” Swistock said. “But remnants of tropical systems are the way we get out of most droughts, and this year is no exception.
“Ground water levels are declining across the state and some areas have even recorded record low levels already, so we need substantial amounts of rain,” he added. “This has been a mild hurricane and tropical-storm season in the Caribbean and south Atlantic so far, but perhaps a storm or two will form in the coming months and bring Pennsylvania the moisture we need.”
Only nine counties in the extreme southeastern tip of Pennsylvania were not named under the drought watch, including Berks, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Lancaster, Lehigh, Montgomery, Northampton and Philadelphia. “After a fairly wet winter and spring, precipitation levels over the last two months have dropped dramatically, resulting in deficits of as much as 4 inches in some counties,” DEP Secretary Kathleen McGinty said in announcing the drought watch. “With groundwater and streamflow levels also on the decline, we’re asking everyone to conserve water to get us through the rest of the summer months.”
A drought watch declaration is the first level — and least severe — of the state’s three drought classifications. It calls for a voluntary 5 percent reduction in nonessential water use.