The nor’easter this weekend knocked out power for thousands and flooded some coastal areas — but the rain also brought some relief to Massachusetts’ rivers, ponds and groundwater supply.
Some towns in the southeastern part of the state received as much as 7 inches of rainfall, with more expected through Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service.
The rain was sorely needed on the Cape, which has been in a drought for years. Water resource experts hope the nor’easter also eased mild drought conditions in the Connecticut River Valley and Northeast and Southeast regions.
Vandana Rao, the state’s director of water policy, said it was a good sign that the nor’easter didn’t unleash torrential downpours over a short period of time. Short bursts of rain like that tend to result in a lot of polluted runoff into water bodies because the ground doesn’t have time to absorb and filter the water.
Instead, the storm dumped its rain gradually over three days.
“That’s the type of rain we want to see, because that’s the rain that’ll soak into the ground, will get into our streams, will make sure the groundwater starts to replenish,” Rao said. “It’s good for the whole hydrological system.”
Massachusetts drought levels have improved overall since they reached critical levels in 2024, which fueled dozens of wildfires. Still, parts of the state have continued to experience below-normal rainfall, and groundwater levels have remained lower than experts would like.
David McGlinchey, executive director of the Massachusetts Rivers Alliance, said groundwater is key to maintaining pond and water reservoir levels and keeping underground wells stable.
“There are places in the state where wells have run dry, where groundwater levels have been so depleted that people can’t rely on their wells anymore,” he said.
McGlinchey and Rao said it’s too soon to know how much the drenching from this weekend’s nor’easter eased drought conditions. Officials still need to gather and analyze data from various water monitoring locations.
The state’s Drought Management Task Force will consider those measurements when they meet in early October and recommend new drought designations for the state’s different regions. It will be up to Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper to make the final drought designations.
“When we look at the data, we’re not just looking at one event,” Rao said. “Drought is sort of an accumulation of many factors over a long period of time. And so for those regions to come out of a drought from a ‘Level 1’ to normal, we want to see that the system as a whole has really gotten good recovery.”
The nor’easter swept across the region as a powerful El Niño climate pattern warms waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Although scientists say the El Niño doesn’t directly feed storms around New England, nor’easters do appear to be more frequent during El Niño years.
Rao said she couldn’t predict whether this year’s El Niño will produce more storms like the one that lashed Massachusetts over the weekend. That’s because climate change is causing more extreme weather, including long bouts of little rainfall interrupted by intense precipitation events — with rain falling too quickly for the ground to absorb it.
Both Rao and McGlinchey were confident that, despite the recent rain, Massachusetts can expect more dry periods going forward.
“This rainfall is welcome in terms of alleviating drought,” McGlinchey said. “But we know there’s more of it in the future.”
