N.J. drought worsens again, with several counties now in a rare ‘extreme’ drought

The latest drought status map for New Jersey looks even worse than it had looked during recent weeks, with three counties now experiencing a rare "extreme" drought and most other counties in a severe drought .

Extreme drought conditions are very rare in New Jersey, seen only once every 20 to 50 years, according to State Climatologist David Robinson, whose office at Rutgers University provides input to the national agency that issues the U.S. Drought Monitor status map each week.

The latest map, released Thursday morning, shows extreme drought conditions have hit almost all of Atlantic County and most of Burlington and Ocean counties, along with tiny portions of Camden and Cumberland counties.

Those areas, shaded in red on the drought status map, make up about 20% of the entire Garden State. Most of the rest of the state is in a severe drought, which is bad but not as serious as an extreme drought.

The drought situation has been triggered by more than two months of very little rain falling in New Jersey.

The impacts of extreme droughts can be significant, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center, which lists these as problems that have occurred in the past during these types of droughts:

Crop loss is widespread.

Christmas tree farms are stressed.

Dairy farmers are struggling financially.

Extremely reduced flow to ceased flow of water is observed.

River temperatures are warm; wells are running dry; people are digging more and deeper wells.

Water recreation and hunting are modified.

Wildlife disease outbreak is observed.

Well drillers and bulk water haulers see increased business.

Drought watch continues Three weeks ago, New Jersey's worsening drought situation prompted Gov. Phil Murphy's office to declare a drought watch , asking residents and businesses across the entire state to voluntarily conserve water.

State officials said if the dry conditions persist, the drought watch may be elevated to a more serious drought warning or rare drought emergency. But they did not put a timetable on when that might happen.

Those designations would allow the state to impose mandatory water-use restrictions for homeowners and businesses to help ease the strain on water supplies.

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