Recent snow and rainstorms are helping drought conditions across the D.C. region, but it’s still too soon to know whether water conservation methods will need to be taken this spring and summer.
That’s according to Michael Nardolilli, executive director of the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin.
Last summer caused concern because levels in the Potomac River dropped, Nardolilli said. The drought conditions prompted local officials to recommend people take steps, such as shaving a few minutes off time spent in the shower and limiting watering the lawn.
In a newsletter earlier this month, the group wrote that drought conditions have improved but are still around.
The deficit was over 20% last summer, Nardolilli said, and that’s now dropped to 14%. Despite the positive change, Nardolilli said the deficit is “still a cause for us to make sure that we are monitoring the conditions going forward.”
“We’re very pleased that we got through that, and the recent rains and snow are very good news for the basin,” Nardolilli said. “I want to add, though, that we are not out of the woods yet.”
In the D.C. region, only a portion of western Virginia is experiencing what the U.S. Drought Monitor considers abnormally dry conditions.
Central Maryland remains in a drought warning, but water levels are trending in a positive direction, according to Jay Apperson, spokesman for Maryland’s Department of the Environment.
“At the beginning of December, we had a rainfall deficit in central Maryland and lower-than-normal groundwater levels in both central and western Maryland,” Apperson said. “Since that point, both the central Maryland rainfall and the western Maryland groundwater levels have returned to normal levels.”
Meanwhile, Nardolilli said the focus is on this spring and summer.
“What we are looking at now is the long-term,” Nardolilli said. “What are the conditions going to be next summer? Is this just a drought that we had in 2023, or is it going to be a two-year drought extending into 2024? That, we simply do not know.”
It’s also difficult to predict, he said, but models show that “while the basin is going to get wetter and hotter over time, we predict that the variability of the rainfall is going to increase, so that the wetter years will be wetter and the drier years will be drier.”
Nonetheless, last week’s snow was helpful, Nardolilli said, because it melts and filters into groundwater.
“Hopefully, we get a lot of snow, and that snow will be a very good indicator of future water levels in the Potomac River,” he said.
However, he recommends people sweep lingering salt from their sidewalks and driveways.
“Otherwise, the next rain is going to come, and it’s going to wash into our streams and cause the salt levels to rise,” Nardolilli said.
It’s likely that conditions will change, Nardolilli said, but “we just don’t know whether it’ll be wetter or drier. We just have to make sure that we don’t waste the resource now.”
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