Study: Summer Drought Unlikely Despite Dry Winter

By Stephen Singer

Associated Press

HARTFORD – A summer drought in New England is unlikely despite a warm winter and little snow that sent far less water than usual tumbling into streams and rivers, US scientists said in a recent study.

Summer rains play a bigger role than winter snowpack in feeding waterways, the study by the US Geological Survey found.

The study also links stream flows to climate. Temperatures have been rising for half a century, causing snowpack to melt earlier, which in turn leads to most runoff early in the season, usually before April, it said.

Robert W. Dudley, an Augusta, Maine-based hydrologist for the Geological Survey and one of three authors of the study that was released last week, said he and others conducted the study after observing lower-than-usual streams.

“You look around, you see abnormally low stream flows in the spring,” he said. “People say it’s because of the warm winter. Or it’s a combination of the warm winter and little snow. Intuitively, they’re both right.”

In southern New England, stream flows were off 90 percent from typical flows in April.

Average temperatures in northern New England in March and April increased 1.3 degrees from 1953 to 2002. But the scientists avoided the charged debate over climate change. Climate projections are handled by other agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and university researchers, Dudley said.

A warm March contributed to early snowmelt runoff and to below-normal stream flows in southern New England in April, the study said.

“It is well-known that precipitation affects stream flows, but it has been less well-known that air temperature can affect flows, too,” said Glenn Hodgkins, the report’s lead author.

The study did not discount a lack of snow as a cause for low streams. Less snow results in reduced snowpack accumulation and less water in spring runoff.