By: Madison Rosenberg, Follow South Jersey Community Journalist
SOUTH JERSEY – New Jersey has consistently had below-normal precipitation rates for the past 15 out of 17 months, experts say. Beginning in September of 2024, the consistently dry months have plunged New Jersey into persistent droughts or drought warnings.
According to New Jersey state climatologist David Robinson, the specific reason why a drought is lingering is not yet known, but there hasn’t been much of an increase in drought occurrences for the state.
“We had drought in ‘95, in the mid ‘80’s, a pretty notable drought in ‘81, and then you go to the early to mid ‘60’s, which was the drought of the last couple of centuries,” Robinson said.
The drought that occurred across the eastern United States lasted for multiple years and is mentioned on the New Jersey page on the drought.gov website. Under the mention of the 1960’s drought, the site notes that the consistent drought from 2024-25, which has continued into 2026, has had some negative impact on crops and wildfire risk, making this a more intense drought period than some past occurrences.
“What it seems that we may be seeing, but with precipitation it takes some time for trends to emerge, is a flashier situation,” Robinson said. “We are gonna go quickly into dry conditions, and spring out of them with some sort of heavy precipitation coming along.”
In 2026, drought is beginning to be a real problem. While the snow from the recent storm is starting to melt, these graphs show that from June 2025 through early February 2026, precipitation levels have been steadily sinking and are low enough to cause concern. In the graphs, reservoir levels in multiple areas in New Jersey are below what they were in previous years.
“This is the first one in decades that has really had legs,” Robinson said. “It’s really persistent in to, calendar-wise, it’s the third year. But we are about two years into precipitation levels about no better than three-quarters of normal, and virtually every month, with a few exceptions, we have had below-normal precipitation.”
In May 2025, New Jersey experienced well-above-normal levels of precipitation and was able to pull out of a drought, and was able to stay out due to July 2025 precipitation also rising above normal. If those two months hadn’t been so rainy, New Jersey might have had bigger issues.
“I can’t prove anything now, but I contend that we would have had a drought emergency last summer,” Robinson said. “But because of those heavy rains, followed up two months later by a slightly above normal July, that staved off going into a drought emergency and improved conditions.”
However, every month since July has been below normal levels of precipitation. As New Jersey entered autumn, the state got drier and drier, and in October, residents across the state were warned to conserve their water as drought conditions worsened. If these dry conditions continue and New Jersey continues to experience below normal levels of precipitation, then there could be some real problems for people and ecosystems.
The snow melting could be helpful for the drought, Robinson says. And we still have March, April, and May to hopefully bring wetter conditions and pull the state out of a real emergency.
What does it mean to have a “real emergency”, though? Robinson says that multiple facets of life could be impacted if this drought continues to persist. Spring is fire season in New Jersey, and the Jones Road Fire last year is an example of how bad things can get with a drought fanning the flames.
Even though wildfires can be devastating and dangerous, they are a short-term worry compared to the other concerns surrounding drought. Crops and drinking water shortages can cause extreme long-term devastation if dry circumstances continue.
“If we were to keep slipping into a worse drought, farmers could have a hard time getting crops in the ground because the soil is bone-dry,” Robinson said. “Nothing is growing out of that soil. If they’re using irrigation, then the dollar signs start coming in. It gets expensive. Then we have the case of having enough drinking water.”
Having enough water in reservoirs and groundwater is the real concern for New Jersey, Robinson says. Human consumption and industry consumption of water are where most of the reservoir supply goes, and a drought could weaken the supply that New Jerseyans need.
A drought emergency could also mean restrictions on everyday water usage. Since there are six drought regions in New Jersey, rules can change depending on where residents are. If a region gets put into a serious enough drought warning, tasks as simple as lawn care can be restricted or outright banned. Currently, several parts of New Jersey have different drought conditions, ranging from no drought to severe drought.
“Lawn watering gets banned, that’s typically the first thing to go,” Robinson said. “Car washes, they could have to start recycling their water, there’s been concerns in more extreme droughts in the past where they were worried if water was even going to come out of the fire hydrants.”
While New Jersey hasn’t reached a state of emergency yet, there are worries about the low precipitation level that has been persisting for months on end. The year has only just begun, though. For now, residents can utilize water conservation tactics, hope for higher precipitation in the coming months, and hope that the melting snow will have some impact on quenching dry circumstances.
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