A flurry of late winter snowfalls, combined with soaking rains in recent weeks, has helped replenish the reservoirs and restore groundwater levels, which gets rivers flowing again.
But in recent weeks, the jet stream shifted, with a southerly dip over the eastern United States.
“This has been the very recipe one would prescribe to bring ample moisture to the region,” he said.
As a result, the Passaic River at Little Falls is running at nearly three times the historical average for this time of year.
Flood stage for the Passaic at Little Falls is 7 feet.
Similarly, the Ramapo River at Pompton Lakes is flowing at more than double its typical level for this time of year, while last fall it was at 79 percent below the historical average.
Over the fall and winter, the North Jersey District Water Supply Commission, which operates the Wanaque Reservoir, operated its two pumping stations to start replenishing the reservoir system.
Similarly, in October the Oradell and two other reservoirs along the Hackensack River operated by Suez, which provide water for 800,000 people in Bergen and Hudson counties, were down to a combined 44 percent of capacity.
It was New Jersey’s first drought warning since 2001.
“We continue to evaluate the indicators,” he said, “and will have a much better picture on whether to lift the warning and watch statuses currently in effect when we review the indicators early next week.” Drought recedes -Wanaque and Oradell Reservoirs had been as low as 45 percent of capacity last fall, but are nearly full now.

Drought conditions improve again across NH.
Continued rainfall and snowmelt over the last few weeks have improved New Hampshire’s months-long drought issue.
In the latest report Thursday morning, most of the southern half of the state is no longer in a severe drought.
The state was gripped in an extreme drought – which is more serious than a severe drought — from the end of 2016 through the beginning of 2017.
Now, the severe drought area is restricted to most of Sullivan County.
Most of the rest of the southern half of the state, from the Massachusetts border through the Lakes Region, is in a moderate drought.
Areas in the White Mountains, extreme southwestern New Hampshire and the southeastern edge of the state are just considered abnormally dry.
In the North Country and a tiny patch along the Vermont border in Cheshire Country, there is no drought at all.
In the map above, dark orange areas indicate severe drought conditions, light orange areas indicate moderate drought conditions and yellow-shaded areas show where conditions are considered abnormally dry.

Just in: Severe drought escalates in Florida.
An unusually parched dry season has expanded areas of severe drought in Florida, according to a U.S. Drought Monitor report released this morning.
About 60 percent of Palm Beach County is listed in “moderate drought” with the remainder considered extremely dry.
Related: Some severe thunderstorms today, but don’t expect much rain But areas west, north and south of Lake Okeechobee are faring worse, falling into the “severe drought” category.
Statewide, 13 percent of Florida is in severe drought, 30 percent is in moderate drought and 25 percent is considered abnormally dry.
Coastal areas of Palm Beach County are down 8.4 inches of rain for the season that began in November.
The Treasure Coast has a deficit of 8.3 inches of rain, according to the South Florida Water Management District.
Check The Palm Beach Post radar map.
In the 16 county region covered by the district, the average rainfall is down by 6.3 inches for the season.
The National Weather Service has put all of South Florida under a fire watch on Friday as low humidity and gusty winds follow a cold front moving through today.

Drought in Kenya Sends More Girls to School.
But this time, something unusual is happening: Hard-hit herder families are instead selling drought-threatened livestock and using the money — along with government cash payments — to keep girls in school.
“It is no longer profitable to exchange our young daughters with livestock, because when the animals die of drought, it is like we have lost the girl,” Joyce Apus Ipapai, a mother of eight from Lorengelup village, said.
Responding to drought by keeping girls in school is far from an obvious coping strategy for poor families like Ipapai’s.
More than 38,000 households in Turkana County receive the payments, officials said.
In recent years, other parents in the area also have decided to forgo marrying their teenage daughter to win dowries, instead relying on social payments to get them through droughts and investing in their daughters’ education and future employment prospects as a new more resilient form of savings.
As a result, Lopungre became one of the 35 girls who started at the new Nakurio Girls Secondary school in 2015.
Unlike what happened just 10 years ago, where girls were forcefully married off in exchange with livestock, the same parents are now willing to sell the very livestock in order to pay school fees for their daughters,” said Missionary Alfred Areman, the principal at the school and a clergyman at a local Catholic church.
Campaign changed minds The switch comes on the back of tireless campaigning on the value of keeping girls in school by the church, local officials and humanitarian organizations.
“Once a few girls get it right, they will become role models to others, including parents, and that will help us keep up the campaign to promote girl child education in this area,” he said.

Rain Thursday could mean improvements to drought conditions in NH.
Last year’s drought took a toll on Benedikt Dairy and many other farms across the state.
“At some point in the fall, we just said, ‘What even happened to us?’” said Benedikt, who’s been operating his farm for six years.
“That’s not something we’re prepared for,” he said.
“Half the year, everything’s frozen and the only thing we’ve got going for us is plenty of water, so if you take that away, there’s really nothing left that we have as a competitive advantage,” he said.
Even if that improves, Benedikt will remain cautious, hopeful Mother Nature is kinder this year.
“Just a normal year would be nice,” he said.
“Don’t need anything amazing.
Just give me my 40 inches a year or whatever we have here and let me grow some grass.
That would be nice.” The state will put out a new drought map Thursday, which will indicate whether drought conditions have improved or not.

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HARTFORD — Rain can be a good thing, even though it’s often looked at as a negative.
Water levels at reservoirs across the state are looking more impressive than they did a few months ago.
Our unusually dry conditions developed into a moderate drought over the summer, then it was upgraded to severe and even extreme.
At one point, 44.5 percent of the state was in "extreme drought" conditions, which makes it the worst drought in Connecticut in at least 20 years.
Droughts can be detrimental to our health, as you might imagine.
Luckily for us, an active winter brought major relief.
Several storms cut our drought from extreme, to severe, and with this week’s rainstorms, it appears we may finally be cutting down to a moderate drought.
In the short term, flooding may be a concern, but in the long term, this rain will be celebrated, as it’ll help to alleviate our drought.

From drought to deluge: Incoming rain may cause flooding.
With the Housatonic and other Berkshire rivers and streams running fast and approaching bankfull, the National Weather Service predicts that torrential downpours on Thursday and Friday could spur minor to moderate flooding in some areas.
The government agency’s posted flood watch for the entire region is up until Saturday morning.
The approaching storm is expected to dump up to two inches of rain on ground already saturated from snow melt and Tuesday’s rainfall, which totaled just over an inch at Pittsfield Municipal Airport.
According to the National Weather Service, the rainfall combined with additional runoff from the recent snow melt will cause many rivers in the region to reach or exceed flood stage.
An intensifying storm over the Ohio Valley late Wednesday was heading toward upstate New York and western New England.
Thunderstorms are possible, especially south of the Mass Pike.
Rainfall should taper off late Friday, with occasional showers after sunset.
The payoff early next week will be a stretch of real spring weather, with sunny skies and temperatures well above normal, likely into the 60s by Monday and even the 70s on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the moderate to severe drought that afflicted Berkshire County and the rest of Massachusetts since last spring has eased quickly, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

From Daniel Swain at the California Weather Blog: After a record wet winter across much Northern California (and a less impressive but still above average winter in Southern California), March was a relatively dry month across most of the state. This was especially true across the southern third of California, where little to no significa nt precipitation occurred amidst warmer than average temperatures. These relatively early spring-like conditions not only mean that Sierra snowmelt season is in full swing, but also have combined with prodigious winter rains to produce spectacular wildflower displays across southern and central California. Despite the warm…

Researchers examined death statistics and hospital admissions for cardiovascular and respiratory disease during non-drought, worsening, and improving drought conditions in western states over a 14-year period, from 2000 though 2013.
The retrospective analysis, which also showed a statistically-significant reduction in hospitalizations for respiratory illness during full drought periods, is among the first studies to examine the impact of drought on health in the U.S., Jesse D. Berman, PhD, of Yale University in New Haven, Conn., and colleagues, wrote in Lancet Planetary Health, a new journal launching this month.
These data were compared with hospital admissions among people age 65 and older identified through Medicare claims made during the period in an effort to calculate daily rates of cardiovascular admissions, respiratory admissions, and death.
The analysis revealed that: Respiratory hospital admissions significantly decreased by -1.99% (95% posterior interval, -3.56% to -0.38%) during periods of full drought compared to no drought, but not during worsening drought conditions Risk for death increased by a statistically significant 1.55% (0.17%-2.95%) during high-severity worsening drought conditions compared to no drought, but not during full drought or low-severity worsening drought conditions Drought status was not significantly associated with cardiovascular admissions In areas where droughts occurred less frequently, however, both mortality and cardiovascular hospitalizations showed statistically significant increases during drought.
Specifically, in counties with less than 20% of days classified as drought periods (314 counties), high-severity worsening drought was associated with a 4.4% increase in mortality and a 9.3% increase in cardiovascular hospital admission, compared with non-drought periods.
"Although as drought becomes more common, we might observe population acclimatization making future health effects less pronounced, an outcome seen in studies of temperature and heat waves."
Although not significant, the researchers found that the risk of death was four times greater in rural counties than urban counties during high-severity, worsening drought.
Another potential study limitation included possible misclassification of both exposure and disease.
"One area that remains to be investigated is what measures or characteristics of drought are most predictive of health effects?"
Balbus wrote.

Flood concerns may dampen drought.
Hide caption Water levels rose on the Monatiquot River on Tuesday, April 4, ahead of another rainstorm, which is expected for Thursday.
[Wicked Local Photo/ Bradford Randall] brandall@wickedlocal.com This week’s rain comes on the heels of several systems that have dumped more than two inches of rain on Braintree in April, according to forecasters.
Strong winds may also be a concern Thursday, with gusts up to 50 miles per hour expected.
“During the course of the mid- to late afternoon, a swath of heavy rain will move through, into the night and should be diminishing before about midnight.
The rain will continue to take a bite out of a drought, which has plagued New England for over a year.
As of the beginning of April, less than 15 percent of the state remained classified as suffering a “severe drought,” with more than 60 percent of the state suffering those conditions three months ago.
In total, Braintree has been drenched with more than two inches of rain in the early days of April, which is more than an inch and a half above normal for the month, the weather service reports.
Gages on the river, monitored by the USGS, had the river cresting at almost four feet on Monday and Tuesday.
Media partner WCVB contributed to this report.