USGS New England WSC seminar: 2020 Drought in New England.

Below average and infrequent rainfall from May through September 2020 led to an extreme hydrologic drought across much of New England, with some areas experiencing a flash drought, reflecting its quick onset. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recorded record-low streamflow and groundwater levels throughout the region. In September, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (2020) declared Aroostook County in Maine and Hillsborough and Merrimack Counties in New Hampshire as crop disaster areas. By the beginning of October, 166 community water systems and 5 municipalities in New Hampshire, more than 100 municipalities in Massachusetts, and several community water supplies in Connecticut, Maine, and Rhode Island had mandatory water restrictions in place. The authors of a new USGS report will present the analyses of data from 76 streamgages and 121 wells in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont from the summer of 2020. Lombard, P.J., Barclay, J.R., and McCarthy, D.E., 2020, 2020 drought in New England: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2020–1148, 12 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20201148.