Drought in New Jersey, December 14 to 31, 1998

The run of unseasonably dry weather that began in July started to take its toll on all parties with water concerns throughout the state. The unseasonably dry weather forced the New Jersey State Department of Environmental Protection to issue a severe forest fire warning for southern New Jersey. Campfires were completely banned in Burlington, Middlesex, Monmouth and Ocean Counties as central New Jersey reached the extreme drought stage. The state forestry service extinguished 42 small wildfires the weekend of December 5th and 6th. Grain farmers suffered serious losses of corn and late season crops. As December continued to be unseasonably dry, even drier than the previous months, reservoir levels continued to fall. On December 14th, the Delaware River Basin Commission declared a drought warning for the 7.3 million people within its 13,539 square mile basin in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and New York. The drought warning affected persons in Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, Hunterdon, Mercer, Monmouth, Morris, Ocean, Salem, Sussex and Warren Counties. The Delaware River Basin Commission also asked people to voluntarily cut back on water usage by 15 percent. The Commission also cut back by 15 percent the amount of water New York City and New Jersey could remove from the upstream reservoirs and the river itself. The flow targets at Montague and Trenton were also reduced to 1,655 cubic feet per second and 2,700 cubic feet per second respectively. Electric utilities must make up for evaporative losses by supplementing the Delaware's flow with releases from the Merrill Creek Reservoir in Warren County. Separately on December 14th, the New Jersey State Department of Environmental Protection declared a drought warning for the entire state. On December 23rd, the Delaware River Basin Commission declared Stage Two of its drought warning. Water diversions by New York City and New Jersey were cut back an additional 15 percent in an effort to stretch existing supplies. The drought's affects were not limited to upstream and reservoir locations. The saltwater line within the Delaware River was at River Mile 85, or about 3 miles upstream from Chester City (Delaware County). This was 11 miles farther upstream than normal for the middle of December and increase the corrosion control costs of industries. It also could affect the sodium levels in the Cohansey Aquifer which lies under southern New Jersey and is recharged by the Delaware River. For the first time in its 46 year history, low water along the Delaware River prevented the reenactment of George Washington and his troops crossing the Delaware River. Instead they had to cross the Washington Crossing Bridge by foot on Christmas morning. The streamflow on the Maurice River in Norma (Salem County) was at its second lowest level in 67 years for December. The Flat Brook in Flatbrookville (Sussex County) was also at its second lowest level on record for December. As dry as July through November were, for most of the state December was even drier. On a county weighted average, every county in New Jersey had less than 1.5 inches of precipitation (.9 to 1.4 inches), except in Atlantic, Cape May and Cumberland Counties where precipitation reached around 60 percent of normal. For most of the state the precipitation was around 2.5 inches below normal. The two driest counties were Hunterdon and Mercer which only received about 24 percent of their normal monthly precipitation. July through December 1998 was also the second driest six month period ever in the state of New Jersey. The average statewide precipitation total of 12.04 inches was only 52 percent of normal. The only drier six month period was November 1984 through April 1985 when a statewide average of 11.92 inches fell. Statewide precipitation records have been kept in New Jersey since 1895.