LEBANON — A series of short, intense storms this month have inundated the region, filling rivers with dangerous currents and dampening summer plans. Yet dry conditions persist, and groundwater levels are slow to recover.
Donald Womack was selling garlic from his Gilmanton, N.H.-based farm at the Lebanon Farmers Market on Thursday. He said that rain has muddied his soil and forced him to delay his harvest until his equipment can get into the field.
“Garlic can only take so much moisture into the bulb itself before it starts splitting apart at the top of the head, and that’s not something we want to happen,” Womack said.
The garlic could rot in the ground. Despite the waterlogged soil near the surface, he said the “water has not gone down.”
The recent rainfall had broken with historical patterns. As of Friday evening, the Lebanon area has seen 8.43 inches of rain in July, well above the monthly to-date average of 3.08 inches.
Most of Sullivan County is in the range of normal conditions now, while northern Orange County is still in a moderate drought, according to the index.
Most of the Upper Valley is out of the moderate drought conditions that lingered earlier in the summer, and Lebanon residents are no longer being asked to refrain from watering their lawns. Despite the rain, the U.S. Drought Monitor Index still describes most of Grafton County and northern Windsor County as “abnormally dry.”
Ted Diers works at the Watershed Management Bureau of the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services. He said that his office has been keeping track of the conditions that led much of the state into this counterintuitive position for about 16 months.
“We started noticing low snowpack in the winter of 2020. We got into very dry conditions last year,” he said. “That drought never really recovered, especially when you really start looking at groundwater. And we had another low-snowpack year this winter. And we had very high temperatures early in the summer.”
During a drought, he said that first the small streams and then the soil dry out, but that “it takes a while for groundwater to go down.” When a drought ends, the pattern reverses, and the groundwater levels are the last to recover.
Later this month, his department will be measuring groundwater levels and reassessing the conditions. But, he said, “We are not where we normally are this time of year.”
With intense, short spurts of rain, he said “it’s very challenging” for that rain to soak in. The surface quickly becomes too saturated to absorb the rain, and the runoff flows off the land and finds its way to brooks and rivers.
“The rivers are flowing at very high rates, and it’s dangerous,” he said. “The river you experienced a month ago is not the river you’ll experience today.”
On Thursday, four teen tubers had to be rescued from the fast-flowing White River in Royalton.
Diers said that in a period of just 18 days, much of New Hampshire has seen 15 to 16 days of rain, and that is “very beneficial” to alleviating drought conditions. During the summer, high temperatures and evaporation limit how much water trickles down to the groundwater. For the aquifers to fully recover, he said, the region needs snow in the winter and a wet fall.
“We’re seeing what’s predicted,” he said when asked about climate change. “We’re predicted to have more rain in fewer events and more intense rain on an annual basis.”
He recommends that homeowners and farmers prepare their property for the new precipitation patterns. Many local farmers are already adapting.
“We’re doing a never-till farming system,” said Lauren Mucha, who grows vegetables at Ascutney Harvest in Windsor. “So not only are we doing no-till, not plowing, etc., but we’ve never tilled. Which is typically a method that helps with water retention.”
Earlier this year, she said, her farm had to “scramble to set up irrigation,” but they haven’t had to use it with the steady rain.
Erva Barnes and his wife grow vegetables and raise animals at Bah-Ke Farm in Piermont. He struggled to fit in a second grazing on his pastures last year; without steady rain, the grass grew back slowly.
He said the heavy rain has “really not negatively impacted us.” They put in trenches to divert water from his sheep yard and the garden and store rainwater for drier stretches.
“Since mid-June until now, we haven’t had to water, irrigate, at all,” he said. “Even on the stuff that’s under plastic. It’s been good for the berries; it’s been good for everything.”
Claire Potter is a Report for America corps member. She can be reached at cpotter@vnews.com or 603-727-3242.
Clarification
Despite heavy rain in July, the U.S. Dro ught Monitor Index still describes most of Grafton County and northern Windsor County as “abnormally dry.” An earlier version of this story included an unclear description of those two counties.