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We just get droughtier

Massachusetts drought continues

An "extreme" drought affecting parts of Middlesex and Essex counties now covers more of eastern Massachusetts, despite recent rains.

Some two-thirds of the entire state is now considered in "severe" or "extreme" drought, according to the weekly map by the US Drought Monitor.

A number of Massachusetts towns that rely on wells have already imposed mandatory bans on outdoor water use. The MWRA, which uses the Quabbin Reservoir to supply Boston and several surrounding communities, has yet to seek any water restrictions. Gov. Baker is expected to discuss the drought this afternoon, however.

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Comments

This isn't even the whole story. Places in the Connecticut Valley that are under severe drought and are entirely dependent on well water are starting to have their wells run dry in large areas of their community.

Yes, you can buy bottled water to drink and maybe wash up with - but toilet flushing, septic system function (microbes), etc.are all dependent on water.

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Amherst put water restrictions into place just yesterday.

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Ironic that western Mass communities don't get Quabbin water...but let's not go there.

I know some people who have really old wells, dug before mechanical drills. Mine's a deep artesian well and I'm not worried about going dry, but if you've got something that's as deep as a human could dig in 1800, you're in trouble.

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Most of the Pioneer Valley towns aren't in the same watershed as the Quabbin - I think the folks down in Palmer etc... have the most 'right' to the water. I'd actually be interested to know about how the Quabbin impacts an adjacent town like Shutesbury which draws water from an aquifer. Does having a large lake nearby necessarily replenish the aquifer? Any geologists or hydrologist care to weigh in?

Hopefully Invest 99L will come through with some serious rainfall in a few weeks and this will all be a moot point. The drought is concerning, but given that we are not in an area which typically experiences long term droughts, I'm optimistic that, unlike CA and the Southwest, this is just a short term cyclical issue.

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Invest 99L...

Was ist das? I mean googling it shows some storms with that name from years past, but what are you referring to?

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https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/

Looks more likely than TS Fiona for US impact.

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From Wikipedia:

An invest in meteorology (short for investigative area, alternatively written INVEST) is a designated area of disturbed weather that is being monitored for tropical cyclone development.

The current Atlantic NHC outlook (I'm guessing at which one INVEST 99L is)

1. A tropical wave located about 300 miles southwest of Cabo Verde
Islands is producing widespread cloudiness and disorganized shower
activity. Environmental conditions are expected to be conducive for
gradual development of this disturbance over the next several days
while the system moves westward at about 15 mph.
* Formation chance through 48 hours...low...near 0 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days...low...20 percent

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Your basic go-to site if you're obsessed with large tropical weather systems and like pondering its "cones of probability" for storms. The map currently shows Tropical Storm Fiona in the mid-Atlantic and behind that the aforementioned unnamed storm.

Possibly worth noting is that mid-September is usually the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season.

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They get Quabbin water if they bothered to have public water supply. Also, UMass Amherst is on the MWRA system

They also dump water into the Nashua river (which serves other towns) and the Swift River to maintain stream flows.

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Your well is still part of the overall water supply.

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Your well is still part of the overall water supply.

I've never heard anyone use the term "overall water supply" before. I've heard of "watershed" and "water table" and "ground water", but any time I've heard the word "supply" in reference to water, it has referred to some kind of feed, not the simple presence of water in the ground.

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I know there's crazy water rights stuff in places like CO and NM, where you don't have the right to collect water that falls off of your roof with a rain barrel but because someone has owns the rights to that water.

That's always blown my mind that out in the West, famed land of rugged individualism, you often can't own something which falls out of the sky onto your land. I get why this happened but it's still bonkers.

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You can't go on MWRA water if your community does not have a public water system. Most western Mass communities haven't chosen to build those systems for obvious reasons.

The Quabbin is more central than western anyway. It is an emergency backup for a number of communities like Worcester.

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Supplies a few towns in Western Mass, although Springfield has its own supply (as does Worcester, and Cambridge, for that matter, it sometimes uses some MWRA water, IIRC a few years ago it went all-MWRA when the waterworks were replaced). Some info here and a map I wish was higher-resolution here.

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Is there any web page that shows the level of their reservoirs? I've looked around the Cambridge Water Department website for anything equivalent to the MWRA's monthly report, but haven't found anything.

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