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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. What do you call long string of days with sunny, dry, absolutely beautiful weather? The answer, a drought. Parts of New York and New Jersey are now in what they call, a drought watch. We'll explain what that means, what you're supposed to do about it in your own water use, and what might happen next. About half the country is experiencing severe drought.

While you might think drought conditions are, for now, only a problem in places like California or the mountain west, New York governor, Kathy Hochul, has asked the State Department of Environmental Conservation to issue that expanded drought watch that includes most counties in New York State. Not New York City, although things are very dry here, and we're going to talk about that too. Not Westchester, but Long Island, yes, the immediate counties above Westchester, yes, and a lot of the state above that. All of that is in a drought watch.

That's the case in New Jersey where the state has issued its first statewide drought watch in six years and is asking residents to conserve water. We'll talk to an expert about why it's so abnormally dry, what it means that this region is experiencing drought and whether these conditions may soon be the norm in the Tri-state area. We'll also get into the more extreme conditions in the west. With us now, Kevin Reed, associate professor at Stony Brook University's School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. Professor Reed, thanks for joining us. Welcome to WNYC.

Kevin Reed: Thanks, Brian. Happy to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Can we start with the definition, when does lots of beautiful weather days in a row or abnormally dry become drought?

Kevin Reed: Let's start with the really basic definition of what is a drought. A drought is really just a lack of moisture. It's a lack of rainfall or other forms of precipitation that persists for a long time. It's not just a day or two without rainfall, it really comes when we see weeks to months and in some cases, years of low rainfall amounts. In that sense, it's really this lack of rainfall that persists over time, but it also needs to be what we call, abnormal. It has to be out of the normal conditions that are expected for a given region.

For example, our region here around the New York area. Some of the ways in which we can really measure the onset of a drought isn't just by looking at precipitation or the lack thereof, as you mentioned, but it's also by looking at what's happening around us. We can look at the soil in our yards and measure how much moisture is in it to see if it's drying out. Another obvious one is to look at the streams through our neighborhoods, in our city to see is the level or the amount of water in those streams lower than normal. These are all indicators that we are entering a drought.

Brian Lehrer: I just got a message from one of my WNYC colleagues who wrote, "As someone who lives in Brooklyn, it is very evident, dead grass and dying trees," with a frowny face emoji. Clear something up for us, because from what I've read, the US Drought Monitor, which is a thing, indicates that 90% of Brooklyn is experiencing what they call severe drought. 100% of Staten Island, they say is experiencing moderate drought and 80% of Queens is at that level too, and yet the state has left the five boroughs off of its drought watch. Do experts sometimes disagree about what counts as a drought?

Kevin Reed: Yes. That's a great question, Brian. I think it boils down a little bit to what are the definitions being used and what are the actions that are needed? In particular, if you look at the US drought monitor project, which is a partnership between The National Drought Mitigation Center as well as the Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, these metrics are really looking at a variety of the indices that we know are indicators for drought.

For example, they look at, has there been a lack of precipitation. They look at data sets that measure the amount of soil moisture in areas, and they also use stream flow data that comes out of a variety of networks that exist in New York and beyond to come up with classifications of a drought intensity, whether that be moderate as much of the areas in, or as you mentioned, parts of Brooklyn, for example, that are classified right now as severe.

Those are somewhat objective. They're based upon those actual physical conditions that are being measured, but they're not necessarily local to the individual community in the sense that it's a little bit more of a broad brush of what are the general conditions in a region. They're really meant to indicate to public officials such as the state, that conditions are conducive to drought right now.

The way they define a severe drought is that crop losses are potentially likely, which might not be particularly important for some regions if you're not a big agricultural area of the state, that water shortages are common and that restrictions may need to be imposed. They're not necessarily suggesting that the borough, for example, is running out of water.

I think when you look at what the state means. When the state issues, for example, a watch or doesn't, it's really suggesting that a drought may be developing and they're really looking at it more from the public water supplier's needs.

Do we need to adjust how individuals or neighborhoods or businesses are getting their water and do we need to start to conserve that amount of water with running the risk of our aquifers or reservoirs emptying. If we just back up, when the state is looking at this, most of the water for our needs in New York City comes for our drinking needs or for our energy production. Most of that water isn't coming from what directly falls right in Brooklyn, it's coming from other parts of the state, typically upstate. I think that is what the state is thinking about when they're deciding where to put a watch in and not.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, help us report this story, would you? Are you seeing the effects of drought in your own neighborhood, in your own area in New York or New Jersey? Tell us what you're seeing, tell us what you're experiencing. Also, tell us, have you changed your habits to conserve water, or you can ask a question for our guest, Kevin Reed, associate professor at Stony Brook University's School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences and a researcher on extreme weather. 212-433-WNYC.

If you want to help us report this story or ask a question, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer. What are we supposed to do about it in the short run? I don't see mandatory restrictions being placed by either the State of New York or the State of New Jersey. Do you?

Kevin Reed: No. What I do see, and we're starting to see this in some of the counties surrounding the city such as Rockland County which has actually just as of yesterday, I believe, declared a stage 2 water emergency, in which they have restrictions starting to go into place effective today in which really starts to impact outdoor water use. The frequency and the time at which you can water your lawn or how much water a golf course can use. Those type of restrictions will typically come at more of the county and local level. I think some of the best advice, Brian, for our listeners is to really check with your local officials, check your local official websites.

When we see guidance that might come in the coming days or weeks, that guidance was really going to come from your local offices. It's also important that it's August, it's that time of year where many of us are traveling around the state and our region. It's important to keep these conditions in mind for if we are planning to take some much-needed break before the school year begins. You should know, is the area of the state or the region that you're visiting experiencing a drought, and do they have restrictions that might impact your plans.

Brian Lehrer: I want to ask you a language question because I know some science communicators prefer to shift away from the word drought to the word aridification. Arid means dry, so aridification. People tend to think of drought as a temporary condition, but parts of the Mountain West, for example, are now having to prepare for a future because of climate change, where these conditions aren't temporary. Do you prefer the term aridification, and will the future bring persistent drought to the Northeast too?

Kevin Reed: That's a great question and I think scientists as you know are no strangers to having different definitions of specific words and what they mean. I don't have a preference either way of which we refer to this. I think when we look at what the United Nations and the intergovernmental panel on climate change uses when they think about droughts is they come up with different types of droughts. You have a meteorological drought which is driven by a lack of rainfall which would be more similar to what we're experiencing much in the New York area right now.

Or there are hydrologic droughts which could be driven by drought conditions elsewhere but it results in a lower stream flow or lower amounts of water coming through your system.

Then there's other types of droughts that might really only matter if you are in the agricultural industry. I think it's important just to talk about when we're talking about drought conditions, what are the impacts for the community. In the Mountain West, there is a larger scale problem in which we see that the soils are drying out on long time periods.

That aridity of course is one of the big drivers not only of the drought conditions you see out there but also the impacts of those droughts, which is very low water levels and reservoirs throughout the west which are important for energy and drinking water out there as well as being the fuel sometimes for wildfires which of course are much more prevalent in the Mountain West than they are in our part of the country. I think it really again comes down to what are the impacts and what is the local weather that you're used to and how is that changing.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a Jersey call. Here's Ann in Colts Neck, you're on WNYC. Hi, Anne.

Anne: Hi, I'm on an acre and a half property, part woodlands, part grass. I noticed that my woodland plants which are typically very moist are wilting very, very intensely. I also have water troughs and bird baths around my property and I noticed that not only are they bone dry from whatever wildlife uses it, but they're actually tilted off its stem. There must be so desperate that actually the animals are quite aggressive in getting the water.

I do some gardening and I notice that as I dig deep in my soil, I actually get smoke coming out of it. I did call the governor's office and I did call up my town council looking for more ordinances that need to be done. We have well water here and in my town, Oliver. I always wonder how our well could run dry. We don't have fire hydrants and some people have pools but I've always been concerned about what happens to our wells when it runs dry.

Brian Lehrer: That is quite a concern. Professor Reed, can you give any insight?

Kevin Reed: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: That smoke might be for one thing coming out of the ground as well as whether communities like Colts Neck that get their water from well water, are they at greater risk?

Kevin Reed: Related to the first part of the smoke coming out of the ground, I'm not sure what that is actually. I'm interested to look it up more but when we think about how drought conditions might affect our different communities, it really depends on how and where you get your water from. When we look at New York City which gets a lot of its water from Upstate, the experience in the city of a potential drought would be very different than those in the surrounding communities that get their water from well water or from the local aquifers.

I think that that's why really my advice is as we go into the next couple weeks is to really follow closely any of the guidance that comes out of local officials. They'll be the ones that understand the implications of where the water comes from for our local communities and provide the necessary guidance of what to do as the drought continues. The other aspect that the caller mentioned was the different implications of the dryness and the heat that we had preceding some of the relatively nice days we've had recently, which is that different plants and different agriculture and crops and grass react different when there's a water stress.

When they don't have the moisture that they need or they're used to. I think a lot of the callers will see this maybe in their gardens or their backyards or on their broader property is that different trees, large trees that have a deep root structure are able to get more forms of water where plants that are buried in more of the topsoil or in your garden, you might see them struggle more in the early days of a drought because they're getting most of their moisture from that top level of the soil. Which might be drying out quicker, which is certainly drying out quicker than lower parts.

Brian Lehrer: Anne, I hope that's helpful. Deborah in Reinbeck, you're on WNYC. Hi, Deborah.

Deborah: Hi, can you hear me? Hi, thank you for all you do Brian. You're wonderful. I am in the Hudson Valley and I just built a house and have had lots of landscaping and dealing with the earth in a different way. My lawn guy hasn't been here in over two weeks because it's so brown and the landscapers, the company, they have a lot of people who are like twiddling their thumbs because it's so dry and we'll get these storms that'll be this giant dump. Then five miles away they didn't get anything and the leaves are turning colors so it looks like it's Mid-September or late September versus Mid-August, it's very sad. It's very very sad.

Brian Lehrer: Deborah, thank you. I even saw a couple of red leaves on the ground in Manhattan in one of my local parks and assumed it was just a fluke. I was looking up to see if the leaves were changing colors prematurely for any reason in particular and didn't see a lot of them. I thought maybe there's just one of the trees that has some red leaves normally. Would leaves turn color, fall colors early because of drought conditions, Professor Reed?

Kevin Reed: Yes, that's a great question. I'm not sure about that. I'd have to look into that a little bit more but I do think that different types of species of trees experience drought stress very differently. There's no, this is how trees will act during a drought. They can be very different and it also can to do with the local soil in which the trees live as well as other things that happen in the summertime.

We can have insect infestation. There could be other aspects that affect trees as well. Let me touch on the one aspect that I think the caller brought up that is really important to acknowledge because there might be some of the callers in the region that live in the Bronx and are, "Oh we just experienced this flooding." We've seen the pictures on social media.

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Brian Lehrer: Can I ask about that? Earlier in the summer, we were talking about these drenching downpours and floods. Now, poof, we're talking about drought. What?

Kevin Reed: There's two things happening here and the caller highlighted this perfectly, which is some parts especially in the summertime we get a lot of localized rainfall. Meaning, New York's town or a part of the city might get a large amount of rainfall. Let's say like we experienced just a month ago in parts of New York City that got three inches of rain over a short period of time but other parts of the city like Brooklyn didn't get any. Just a couple miles away, you won't get any rainfall.

When these drought indices and metrics come out, they're really focused on the general scale. They won't necessarily know that part of this really localized area did get a lot of rainfall. They maybe not experienced direct drought conditions. We see this when we look across. If you look at Central Park, for example, Central Park has about three and a half inches below their normal amount for the year right now. Which is only about a 10% decrease from the normal amount of precipitation which is enough to start to maybe be noticeable.

Other parts, you just go a few miles west into the Newark area and Newark has seen in some cases almost 25% less precipitation this year as a whole. Most of that lack of precipitation has come in the last month, month and a half, while other parts of the general area experience some of these big rainfall events. Just to wrap up this thought which is really that this is actually one of the ways in which climate change manifests itself in our weather.

What we do know is that the frequency of extreme rainfall events and the amount of rainfall that can fall in those events is increasing. At the same time, the likelihood and frequency of drought conditions in which are prolonged time periods in which you don't have rainfall is also expected to increase particularly, if we don't drastically reduce our carbon emissions in the coming decades. Even though they seem at odds with each other, these are very clear indicators of climate change as well.

Brian Lehrer: You got to go. I got to go in a minute but let me sneak in one more phone call. Mark in Manhattan has an interesting question, I think. Hi, Mark, you're on WNYC. Do it real quick.

Mark: Okay, thanks. I was wondering about the various gradations of water. Do we need to use pristine water to water parks and particularly private golf courses, or should you use water that's been partially treated, wastewater?

Brian Lehrer: Wastewater, dirty water, used water, and beyond that question on Twitter is, can we talk about how lawns are incompatible with avoiding aridification? There's more talk these days than I think there was a New York Times Op-Ed called Kill Your Lawn and things like that.

Kevin Reid: I think you know that in response to the caller's first point which is great. Every municipality and every community is different in what water they use for what. What water is reserved for drinking, what water can be used for watering lawns or parks. I think as a city and a region as we start to think about the outlook for the next 10, 20, 30 years, I think it's important that we can always continue to say are there better ways that we can be doing this that makes us more resilient in times of drought like we're experiencing now? I think that that is something that the city and the state really must do, especially as we try to become more resilient to future climate change.

Brian Lehrer: Kevin Reid, Associate Professor at Stony Brook University's School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. Thank you so much for so much great information. We really appreciate it.

Kevin Reid: Great. Thank you, Brian.

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