ITHACA — Drought conditions persist throughout the region, but Ithaca officials say they’re starting to see water levels rise a bit.
Data released Thursday by the city showed the highest levels of water in the Six Mile Creek at the Bethel Grove Gauge Station since last month. The data compares those levels to relative steady levels of water consumption among residents.
“With rain in the forecast this weekend, we’ll move closer to getting back to normal but it is hard to say how long it will last. Please continue to be vigilant about water conservation!,” the city said in a news release Thursday.
Todd Walter of the Cornell Water Resources Institute explained what our area needs.
“I think we’re looking at 6 to 8 inches of rain for what we really need,” he said. “But we don’t want to get that all at once. We want to get it over several days. I think we need at least that much to get us into a good state.”
Walter says there’s been some good news for the area so far.
“We had quite a big rain on Wednesday and that brought us up quite a bit, but we just need a big rise in the groundwater, and that’s where that water needs to get to in order to maintain the flow between these storms.”
Data from the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell shows precipitation levels of 2.4 inches measured at the Cornell Orchards for the month of August, which is a little more than an inch above normal for this time of the month.
