Drought in Delaware, May 1 to 31, 1999

Unseasonably dry weather returned to Delaware during the month of May, especially in Kent and Sussex Counties. The state received only 61 percent of its normal monthly rainfall for May making it the 29th driest May in the past 105 years. On a county weighted average, monthly rainfall totals ranged from 0.8 inches in Kent County (20 percent of normal) to 3.1 inches in New Castle County (78 percent of normal). The county average rainfall total for Sussex County was 1.4 inches (38 percent of normal). Streamflow levels were below normal by the end of the month. In New Castle County, on May 16th the stage of the White Clay Creek at Newark reached a new record low streamflow for the day. It was running at one-third of its average streamflow. The White Clay Creek is reaching levels it last reached during the drought of 1995. Newark instituted a new water conservation rate during the month of May. A well in Chester County Pennsylvania reached drought emergency levels. This is one of the aquifers that feed the northern Delaware streams. Elsewhere in the state because of the dry conditions farmers either delayed planting or hauled irrigation equipment early to the fields. By the end of the month both top and subsoil moisture levels in half the fields were rated either short or very short of moisture.