On this week’s map, areas of the region—including western and northern New York, and southern portions of New Hampshire and Vermont—saw improvements in areas of Moderate Drought (D1) in response to precipitation (~2 inches) during the past week. Likewise, this week’s rainfall led to reduction of areas of Abnormally Dry (D0) in Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. For the week, average temperatures were above normal across the southern part of the region with the greatest positive anomalies (6 to 8 deg F) observed in southern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and Delaware. Further to the north, slightly cooler-than-normal temperatures (1 to 4 deg F) were observed across much of New York, as well as northern portions of New Hampshire and Vermont. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for the week ending on May 2, the percentage of topsoil moisture in Maine rated short to very short was 61%, whereas all other states in the region ranged from 0 to 29% short to very short. However, the NASA Crop-CASMA (Crop Condition and Soil Moisture Analytics), a remotely sensed geospatial soil moisture and vegetation index mapping application, is showing negative soil moisture anomalies (May 1) across parts of eastern Pennsylvania where 7-day average streamflow percentiles are ranging from the 1st to the 24th percentile.

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