Experts predict unusually dry autumn for Maine

AUGUSTA – Maine’s climate is at a crossroads.

Just a few inches of rain – three at the state’s heart, and six in the dry southern and coastal regions – could pull Maine out of the moderate drought that has lingered all summer.

A single hurricane or tropical storm would do the trick, climatologists told the Maine Drought Task Force on Tuesday. But El Nino is back, and long-term climate models predict it will cause the East Coast to experience an unusually dry fall with a mild tropical storm season.

The drought is by no means over for most Mainers.

Only Aroostook County has recovered fully, thanks to recent thunderstorms that did not reach the rest of the state, scientists said.

Arthur Cleaves, state director of the Maine Emergency Management Agency, on Tuesday described the difficulty of explaining to his friends how a drought can persist despite high lake levels and lush lawns.

“Our drought isn’t as visual,” Cleaves said. “You can’t see it, but it’s just as real.”

Flush with melting snow and spring rains, Maine typically enters each June with a wealth of surface water. As the summer progresses, plants use this resource, and a natural dry period occurs each August.

In a healthy environment, groundwater stored beneath Maine’s cities and towns would recharge lakes and rivers.

But Maine’s environment is not healthy this year.

Last year’s drought depleted the state’s groundwater supply – its water savings – and this spring’s rain, although at or slightly above average levels statewide, has not been able to replace that water.

As a result, when the annual phenomenon that scientists refer to as “the summer draw-down” started, Mainers again began reporting dry wells.

“People are telling us that the wells aren’t just low, they’re dry,” Eugene Maxim of the Maine Emergency Management Agency said Tuesday. “We’ve had nothing for weeks, and now three calls in the past two days.”

Last year, the number of dry wells reached 1,500.

Municipal water suppliers also are concerned. Only Alfred has mandatory water conservation policies in place, but Castine and Winter Harbor have issued bulletins asking their customers to limit water use voluntarily, Nancy Beardsley of the state drinking water program said Tuesday.

Dairy farmers in central and southern Maine are struggling as their pasture land dries out, requiring farms to tap into winter feed or buy extra hay. Farmers who had to buy hay because of the army worm infestation last year will have to purchase additional feed for a second summer, Guy Piper of the Farm Service Agency said Tuesday.

“They’re really hurting,” he said.

The potato crop in Aroostook County is thriving, but apple and blueberry farmers elsewhere are still feeling the effects of last summer. Buds for this year’s fruit should have formed last fall at the peak of the drought, but could not, John Harker, a water management specialist with the Maine Department of Agriculture, said Tuesday. “They’re looking at lower yields this year,” he said.

With no moisture in the deep soil, only farmers who irrigate are completely protected, he said.

Watershed managers have maintained many lake and river levels by manipulating the flow at various dams, but water levels statewide are slightly below average, according to U.S. Geological Survey data.

“In July, it wasn’t really noticeable, but the flows have been dropping substantially for the past couple of weeks,” Greg Zielinski, the state climatologist, said Tuesday.

Drought is a steep slope, and without substantial fall rains Maine could find itself in dry conditions nearly identical to this year come next spring.

“We saw what can happen: People were without water all winter long,” Zielinski said.

“We could slip right back to where we were a year ago, and that’s troubling,” Cleaves added. “It all depends on rain.”