Baby, it's dry out there!

Downeast Maine has weathered “significant rainfall deficit” and is currently experiencing “rapid drought intensification,” aka a flash drought as a result. Baby, it’s dry out there. The beach peas on Rodgers Island are shriveled and dead, the wild berries are a fraction of their usual size for this time of year and the creeks are running dry across all of Washington County—and beyond, I am sure. We will be hosting a gang of hungry black bears in Maine this fall along with all the other beasts who count on berries, apples, and lush vegetation as a bulwark of their diets. And the cold, deep water loving trout will be seriously impacted by these conditions. It is not the norm for our supposedly “temperate” zone weather conditions. It will probably be a very long time before we attain sub-tropical heat conditions, but the warm weather is definitely on the increase and it’s not too soon to begin adopting arid, low water modalities of coping with this change. Of course, when the drought ends, we might get a few solid months of wet weather like we had this spring. But regardless of the precipitation, the warmer weather is here to stay and even now it is impinging on our cold, ordinarily snow-rich weather patterns of the days of yore. For many of us, the days of yore, when snow fell in the early fall months and continued into spring, with the mountains and country roads remaining snow covered throughout the winter with deep ice on the lakes and even some saltwater coves and bays freezing over are the actualities of our personal experience. No more, methinks. Now the Can-Am sled dog race committee in Fort Kent sits on tenterhooks every season, waiting on a forecast of cold and snow. Sometimes it misses (2024). With weather, we can only hope, which of course, includes petitioning with prayer, wishing, doing a snow dance and whatever other persuasive effort which might, just might, affect the weather. As a long term objective, we could continue our attempts to reduce our carbon footprint and slow this process to some degree, perhaps even reversing it if we band together, however that seems unlikely at this point in our communal efforts to allay the ongoing reality of climate change.

           But we were talking about now, about drought, and about the potential consequences, and remedial actions we might take to avoid the worst of them. At this point, barring the failed crops and frustrated berry-lovers—raccoons, skunks, bird, bears, et al—we must beware of fire. Particularly human caused fire, because even lightening storms have been a rare feature this season. While there is no “Red Flag” order in effect, despite the near tinder-dry conditions, frequent gusty winds, and shortage of water sources we are in a moderate to high danger range of forest fire. And, the supply of water to fight such a blaze, or any substantial fire for that matter, is seriously affected by the low water of rivers, pond, lakes, irrigation pools, and drilled wells. The water quality is now low and would be even more negatively affected by the results of runoff from any forest fires we might experience thus creating algae blooms and further reducing the oxygen content in our waters. This means we must be careful: judicious use of water (ie, nix the car-wash, sympathize with, but do not hydrate that sorry brown lawn in the back yard, look to my blog on the delights and water-saving bonus of the Maine Bucket Bath, and wear those dungarees for an extra day or two (or until it rains again)). And, equally important we must be extra careful about fire. The best plan is not to create one under these conditions—don’t toss your cigarette butts out the window, only operate machinery on open roads, never drive across grassy fields or through bushy areas, don’t burn trash out of doors, ixnay on the bonfires and fireworks, and don’t play with matches…

            We are in a drought. Our air and water is getting warmer. The ocean is rising (glacier and arctic ice melt) and erosion of beaches is at an all time high from more frequent and powerful storms...to steal a phrase from the Watch-Sargent of Hill Street Blues, “And Hey!...Let’s be careful out there.”

            by: CA Kniffen