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Oct 10, 2007 7:12 pm US/Eastern
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Drought Problems Continue For Maryland
by Meteorologist Tim Williams
BALTIMORE (WJZ) ―
Tuesday night's rain was only a drop in the bucket as Maryland's drought problems continue. The region is dropping into record dry levels.
Meteorologist Tim Williams reports that Maryland's lack of rain is a problem for everyone, and there's no relief on the horizon.
Hydrologists say you have to go back to 1966 to find a period drier and as long as this one.
Wendy McPherson with the U.S. Geological Survey has been measuring stream and ground water levels--levels that are falling off the charts.
"It kind of started as an agricultural drought, and now it's more a water resources drought where water and stream flow levels are getting pretty low," McPherson said.
It hasn't happened overnight. By definition, drought is a period of abnormally dry weather with a lack of water causing a serious imbalance.
In Rockville, Montgomery County, members of the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin have been releasing 200 million gallons of water from Western Maryland and monitoring how long it takes to reach D.C. and its suburbs, just in case of a drought emergency.
"It's always very hard to say exactly when. The river is somewhat unpredictable, but we're looking at it pretty closely now and ready to think about doing something in the next month," said Mark Lorie, a water resources planner.
While Maryland's reservoirs are currently at healthy levels but slowly dropping, area rain deficits are below normal at BWI, in Salisbury, in Dover, in Hagerstown, and the list goes on.
Excluding storm surge, in 2003 Isabel dumped one to three inches of rain area wide. That's a forecast not in the foreseeable future.
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