Here you see the usually well-mannered Patten Stream in Surry running amok on Wednesday due a warming snow melt.
Yet now, as this is being written at 7:30 this morning, it’s snowing and 14 degrees (F). We seem to be caught in a pernicious winter cycle of snow, freezing weather, thawing warmth, and melting rain.
The precipitation has helped most of Maine and other parts of the nation recover from water scarcity. However, more than half of the United States (including parts of western Maine) remains dangerously dry this winter and a potential source for continual harm to human and other animal and plant life.
I’m posting yesterday’s official Drought Monitor Map to help you focus on our environmental sickness:
The map illustrates the reported data as of February 22 by showing the areas that have no drought problem (white) compared to those that are “abnormally dry” (yellow), in “moderate drought” (tan), in “severe drought” (burnt orange), in “extreme drought” (red), and in “exceptional drought” (brown).
(Photographs taken in Surry, Maine, on February 23, 2025.)