Schuylkill County officially entered drought status this week.
Sadly, there’s no relief in sight, at least not in the short term.
The Drought Monitor compiled by the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the United States Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows most of Schuylkill County in Moderate Drought status.
Only the extreme northwest of the county is not in drought status but it’s abnormally dry there.
Much of southeast and southwest Pennsylvania is experiencing drought conditions, too.
It doesn’t appear as though Schuylkill County will be escaping drought conditions any time soon, either.
We contacted National Weather Service-State College to find out just how bad things are here in Schuylkill County.
And to say that we need rain here is a massive understatement.
Forecasters at NWS-State College say the last time we received at least one-quarter inch of rain was way back on Sept. 29. Before that, it was Aug. 17.
Schuylkill County is between 6-8 inches of rain below normal for the last 60 and 90 days.
It also doesn’t look like we’ll be seeing any significant rain in the near future. Forecasters at NWS say a cold front passing through the area is starved for moisture and no rain that could put a dent in our deficit is expected for the next 8-10 days.
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