Moderate Drought, Unusually Dry Conditions Are Baking Massachusetts

• Story by Mark Schieldrop, Patch staff

MASSACHUSETTS—The Bay State has been dry as of late.

Too dry.

Since March, some of the state has received roughly half of the normal amount of rainfall, while the rest of Massachusetts has received about 70 percent of the typical amount. Depending where you are in the state, the rain deficit is as low as 4 or high as 8 inches, making most of the state abnormally dry and putting a big swath of Massachusetts in the "moderate drought" category.

The National Weather Service said June has been particularly dry. That's great for the beach business, but it puts firefighters on high alert and forces farmers to heavily rely on irrigation. So far, most of the New England region has gotten anywhere from half to just a quarter of the normal amount of rain.

And there's not much relief in sight. There's a chance of isolated thunderstorms midweek, the weather service said, but "hardly a soaker, not enough to break the rainfall deficits."

The lack of rain has also been a challenge for gardeners, but things could be much worse. Temperatures have been cool to normal all June, sparing vegetable gardens and lawns from heat stress.

How have you been dealing with the dryness?