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Despite recent rainfall, 36 counties remain on drought watch and continued voluntary water conservation is requested in those counties, according to DEP.

“ Conditions have improved with the recent rain, but we need to see continued meaningful precipitation over several months and have public water suppliers in affected counties returning  to normal operations before the drought watch can be lifted,”  said DEP Acting Secretary Ramez Ziadeh. “We ask Pennsylvanians in these counties to continue to use water wisely and follow simple water conservation tips to ease the demand for water.”

The following counties are on drought watch: Berks, Bucks, Bradford, Cameron, Carbon, Centre, Clearfield, Clinton, Columbia, Dauphin, Delaware, Juniata, Lackawanna, Lebanon, Lehigh, Luzerne, Lycoming, McKean, Mifflin, Monroe, Montgomery, Montour, Northampton, Northumberland, Perry, Philadelphia, Pike, Potter, Schuylkill, Snyder, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Tioga, Union, Wayne, and Wyoming. For a map of drought declarations that’s updated daily, see the DEP drought web page .

Residents on drought watch are asked to reduce their individual water use by 5 to 10%, or a reduction of three to six gallons of water per day.  

DEP is notifying all water suppliers in these counties of the need to monitor their supplies and be prepared by updating their drought contingency plans as necessary. Varying localized conditions may lead water suppliers or municipalities to ask residents for more stringent conservation actions.

Ways to Conserve Water at Home

There are many ways to conserve water at home, including:   

Find more tips at the  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency .

How DEP Determines Drought Conditions  

To determine drought conditions, DEP assesses information on public water supply levels and data on four indicators: precipitation, surface water (stream and river) flow, groundwater level, and soil moisture. Declarations aren’t based on one indicator alone, such as precipitation. 

The DEP Drought Coordinator monitors the indicators in close partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), which maintains gauges in streams and wells in many locations across Pennsylvania.  

There are normal ranges for all four indicators. DEP makes drought status recommendations after assessing departures from these ranges for all indicators for periods of 3-12 months. For a map that’s updated daily to show the status of all four indicators for each county, see the USGS Pennsylvania drought condition monitoring website.

DEP shares these data and its recommendations with the state and federal agencies and other organizations that make up the Commonwealth Drought Task Force. Drought watch and warning declarations are determined by DEP, with the concurrence of the task force.

Drought emergency declarations follow the same process, with final approval by the governor.  No county is in drought warning or emergency status at this time.

For more information on how DEP monitors conditions and makes drought status declarations, see the  drought management fact sheet .

The next Commonwealth Drought Task Force meeting will be held in approximately two weeks.

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