Although Water Year 2017 was one of the wettest on record, it’s impact on groundwater levels across the state is varied, according to a report issued by the Department of Water Resources on Friday.
While spring groundwater levels have mostly recovered from the last year, most groundwater levels have not yet recovered to pre-drought conditions; the deeper, more severely depleted groundwater basins will take years to recharge.
The data shows that as of spring 2017, most groundwater levels across the state had recovered to Spring 2016 levels, with a little over half (56.7%) showing less than 5 feet of change in groundwater levels.
About 5% of wells measured had an increase of 25 feet or more; only 1% had significantly lower groundwater levels (25 feet or more) as compared to spring of 2016.
When comparing spring 2017 measurements to spring 2011 measurements, only 1.2% had significantly higher groundwater levels; 16.3% had significantly lower groundwater levels.
Approximately 47.6% of wells had less than 5 feet of change.
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Columbia, Lafayette, Miller, Union, Hempstead, Nevada and Ouachita counties are among those counties under "high wildfire danger."
Drought conditions continue in Southwest Arkansas, according to the Oct. 12 Arkansas Drought Monitor report.
The majority of Columbia County is classified as "abnormally dry," with the remainder of the county "moderately dry."
Parts of Lafayette County are "moderately dry," with part of the county "abnormally dry."
The majority of Miller County is classified as "moderately dry," with the remainder "abnormally dry."
The majority of Union County is "abnormally dry."
The majority of Hempstead County is "abnormally dry," with a small area "moderately dry."
All of Nevada and Ouachita Counties are considered "abnormally dry."
According to the Drought Monitor report, deteriorating conditions justified widespread expansion of drought condition “D0” across much of central Mississippi and northeastern Louisiana.
An area of moderate drought (D1) was added to the depiction in eastern Mississippi.

Fifty-year-old Ghodbane, his tanned face etched with deep lines, has been herding sheep for 20 years, having inherited the job and land from his father.
But in this dry region, worsening cycles of drought are posing new challenges to an old profession.
“Drought stops everything,” he said.
“That’s why we call it a global effect.” Hanna, who is from Egypt, said that the two biggest climate worries for North Africa — water scarcity and higher temperatures — are feeding off each other, with limited rainfall rapidly evaporating from the soil in higher temperatures.
Herders turn to wells for water Around the region, herders are searching for water by digging new and deeper wells to reach aquifers.
Algeria’s government has tried to help herders, including by providing limited subsidies to offset some of their increasing costs for water and feed.
‘Nothing else’ Ghodbane, who was born on the land he now farms, says the seasons are changing, with longer summers interfering with the spring and fall rains that are crucial to strong harvests and herding years.
Despite the changing climate, however, he remains committed to his work.
“There is nothing else in farming country.” His son, Abdel Hak, disagrees.
After graduating from high school, he followed in his father’s footsteps and has worked on the farm full time for the past five years, herding animals from six in the morning to eight in the evening.

The average annual costs of the damage caused estimated at around KHS 125 billion/US$1.25 billion – with each drought reducing the country’s Gross Domestic Product by an average of 3.3 per cent.
Even further out of view is the longer-term effect of the drought episodes on women and children, especially when the rains come and humanitarian efforts cease to make headlines.
2.6 million people in Kenya are severely food insecure.
While this will enable the UN and partners to work with the Government of Kenya, to save lives in the immediate term, longer-term strategies must be put in place.
Since the onset of the current drought in late 2016, over 3.4 million people in 23 counties are suffering from the impacts of this drawn out crisis.
In Turkana alone, one in every three children suffers from acute malnutrition and is at increased risk of death.
Beyond threatening human life and survival of children, the drought is also impacting Kenya’s long-term development of Kenya.
In partnership with the Government, the UN family and development partners in Kenya are committed to assist with the response to the drought.
2.5 billion/ US$ 25 million in the form of cash transfers and food, to respond to the emergency.

Almost six months after Massachusetts was declared drought-free, abnormally dry conditions have returned to most of the state, according to the US Drought Monitor.
Abnormally dry is the monitor’s lowest drought intensity classification and currently applies to 58.35 percent of the state, including much of Essex County, Bristol County, Plymouth County, and Western Massachusetts.
Norfolk County, Middlesex County, and Hampden County represent the 31.78 percent of the state currently experiencing a moderate drought, according to the data. Northern Worcester County is abnormally dry, while the southern half of the area is in a moderate drought.
“It’s been much warmer than normal this fall,” she said.
“We should always be paying attention to conserving water and using it wisely,” she said.

DANBURY — A dry spring and summer has left Danburians with rain totals 15 inches below normal, putting the city in a classification just one level above a drought.
The city saw less rain largely because of extreme weather events elsewhere in the country, including tropical storms and hurricanes that devastated the Gulf Coast, said Gary Lessor, assistant to the director of meteorological studies at Western Connecticut State University.
“When you get storms of that magnitude, you get extremes elsewhere,” he said.
Although Danbury has lower-than-average rain totals now, rain forecasted to start next week will keep the city from drought status, Lessor said.
Rain and snow later in the year is expected to add 50-to-60 inches of precipitation in Danbury, which would make up the current deficit, Lessor said.
Meanwhile, on Thursday — for the first time since May — parts of Connecticut were in a moderate drought.
Nearly 43 percent of the state has moderate drought conditions, according to the drought monitor. Areas include northeastern Middlesex County, northern New London County, most of Hartford County and all of Tolland and Windham counties.
A year ago at this time, 83 percent of the state had severe drought conditions.

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp is calling on the federal Agriculture Department to send more workers to western North Dakota, where she says understaffed Farm Service Agency offices are dealing with an overwhelming workload worsened by a summer of crippling drought.
The North Dakota Democrat said farmers and ranchers deserved help and "not an IOU," and her office reported complaints of service wait times at the offices of a month or more. Acting FSA Administrator Steven Peterson in a statement said the agency was committed to "prompt, courteous service."
The U.S. Department of Agriculture declared numerous North Dakota counties to be natural disasters, paving the way for a variety of federal aid such as emergency loans and payments for grazing losses.
USDA in midsummer sent additional staff to help process aid applications at FSA offices in McHenry, Mountrail, Bowman, Golden Valley, Hettinger and Stark counties. It wasn’t clear how many. Those workers stayed only until the end of the fiscal year, according to Heitkamp.
"On Sept. 30, these teams were recalled and now many county offices face a seemingly insurmountable workload," the North Dakota Democrat said in a Thursday letter to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue.
The state FSA office also declined comment.
The national office supplied the statement from Peterson saying FSA "continues to provide additional funding to assist North Dakota with disaster-related temporary staffing, overtime, travel and internal jump team support," but it did not provide details.

There’s a moderate drought in Wake and surrounding counties, according to the N.C. Drought Management Advisory Council.
The moderate drought advisory affects some counties in the northern Piedmont region: Alamance, Chatham, Durham, Franklin, Granville, Harnett, Lee, Orange, Person, Vance, Wake and Warren.
The council advises water users to adhere to local water use restrictions and to minimize nonessential water uses.
The advisory identified other counties in the Piedmont and Coastal Plains as abnormally dry. Those counties should closely monitor water supply sources, the advisory said.
This year, pockets of the Piedmont have only received 25 to 30 inches of rain, especially in Randolph, Chatham, Lee and Moore counties, despite an active hurricane season so far.
Mecklenburg, Rowan and Cabarrus counties have received up to 50 inches of rain this year, higher than the average.
To find more information about water use restrictions in respective counties, check the statewide water supply summary monitored by the Division of Water Resources.
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While it has been nice, we could use some rain.
“Thought we were in for a nice wet summer and fall after June and July then August came and things started drying up so we probably need to get the sprinkler out,” said Marcia Haas of Agawam.
I was actually just thinking how wet it was this past summer, my grass is beautiful, but it has been dry lately,” said Karin Rhomer of Springfield.
The latest drought monitor still has most of western Massachusetts in the abnormally dry category but now most of Hampden County is in the moderate drought category.
The dry weather, along with low humidity and breezy conditions also made for an elevated fire potential Thursday.
While it has been pretty dry recently it’s nowhere near as dry as it was last year at this time.
Most of western Massachusetts was experiencing severe and even extreme drought conditions last October.
From January to now our rainfall deficit is running 1.19″ below average. While some rivers and streams are running lower than normal some lawns are still looking pretty green despite the dry conditions.

EAST LANSING, Mich. – A Michigan State University scientist is leading a competitively funded NOAA research project to create a better system for predicting droughts, a type of climate extreme that causes billions of dollars in direct losses to the U.S. economy every year.
A three-month, completely automated drought outlook is being developed by MSU’s Lifeng Luo.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s current, three-month seasonal outlook relies partially on human observation and judgment and is released once a month.
"That’s not frequent enough, especially when you consider flash droughts, which develop very quickly," said Luo, associate professor in MSU’s Department of Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences. "The forecast needs to be more frequent and reliable."
NOAA’s Research’s Modeling, Analysis, Predictions and Projections (MAPP) Program, in partnership with the National Integrated Drought Information System, is supporting the effort with $293,796 grant that runs through June 2020.
As part of the project, the researchers will participate in NOAA’s MAPP Drought Task Force, working with other MAPP-funded scientists on related projects.
On average, droughts cost an estimated $9 billion in damages every year in the United States, according to NOAA.
"This project will help advance the drought-prediction system and outlooks by NOAA," Luo said.