BUFFALO, N.Y. — The U.S. Drought Monitor has only a small portion of the Western New York area under Moderate Drought conditions still, but most spots are no longer back to normal conditions, but rather in the 'abnormally dry' conditions once again.
Most of northern Pennsylvania remains back to normal conditions still.
The latest U.S. Drought Monitor update for the week of Sept. 28 shows that most Western New York spots are back to Abnormally Dry conditions, including all of Erie, Orleans, Genesee and Chautauqua counties, and most of Niagara County, also much of the Southern Tier as well (as seen on the map above).
Most of Wyoming County and the extreme southern part of Genesee County are still under Moderate drought conditions.
This is because of the consistent drier stretches our area has had recently, including the latest one, knocking out the beneficial rounds of rain earlier in the month that brought many areas back to normal conditions. August rainfall was above average for most of the month as well.
It was a very dry start to the warm season. June 10 marked 21 consecutive days of no measurable rain at the Buffalo airport since 1938, which ranks ninth for driest stretches on record, according to National Weather Service records. If you look at data since the 1870s, it's tied for the top-18 driest stretches.
And not a lot of rain fell for the months of May and June, with most days being without rain. May fell well below average with rainfall, and June was about an inch below the monthly average for rain.
However, July had well above average rainfall with 5.54 inches of rain recorded at the Buffalo airport. The average for the month is 3.23 inches.
As of Aug. 24, the rain totals for the month are running above average at 2.63 inches of rain received so far. The average is 2.40 inches. The month ended with around average rainfall. The monthly temperatures were running about 2.5 degrees below average, which also helps keep the rain in the soil further and not evaporate it quickly back out into the lower atmosphere as much.
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