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ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Alexandria remains under a state drought warning, with the Virginia Drought Monitoring Task Force continuing every existing advisory in an update issued this week despite what the state called significant rainfall.
The task force said the rain has kept conditions from worsening but has not ended the drought, which persists across much of Virginia and is most severe in the Roanoke River region. Northern Virginia — Arlington, Fairfax, Fauquier, Loudoun and Prince William counties and the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax, Falls Church, Manassas and Manassas Park — stays in warning status, the second-most serious of the state's three levels.
Alexandria has been under a warning advisory since the state expanded it statewide in April.
Above ground is recovering. Below ground is not.
The split that has defined this drought for months held again in the latest assessment.
Streamflows were largely normal statewide, with below-normal flow confined to parts of the James, Roanoke and Shenandoah watersheds. Shallow soil moisture has improved to near normal in most of the state. Precipitation over the past week was near or above normal across much of the commonwealth, and the past 30 days have run above normal for most of it.
Groundwater is the exception, and it is a significant one. Levels remain much below normal, with indicator wells in northern and south-central Virginia at or near historic record lows. Reservoirs are within normal ranges everywhere except Smith Mountain Lake and the John Kerr Reservoir, both still well below normal for late August.
Groundwater responds slowly. Aquifers recharge over months and seasons rather than storms, which is why a wet month can restore streams and topsoil while wells stay near record lows.
What it means here
The practical guidance for Alexandria residents remains conservation rather than restriction. Gov. Abigail Spanberger is encouraging Virginians to conserve water.
Virginia American Water, which serves the city, asked residential customers in July to voluntarily cut nonessential use, a request that applies to households rather than businesses or industrial customers.
Alexandria draws its drinking water from the Potomac River, and the city was included in a regional drought watch declared in June by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments covering nearly six million people across the District, suburban Maryland and Northern Virginia.
Elsewhere in the state, the Roanoke River region remains under a drought emergency, and several regions in southwest and southeast Virginia are under the less severe watch status.
The seven-day forecast the state cited calls for 2 to 5 inches of rain east of Interstate 95, tapering to between half an inch and 2 inches in central Virginia and as little as a tenth of an inch in the far southwest.
Locally, the National Weather Service expects showers and possibly a thunderstorm overnight, with a tenth to a quarter inch of rain, followed by an 80% chance of showers and storms Saturday and another quarter to half an inch. The rain clears by Sunday, which should be mostly sunny with a high near 85, and Monday and Tuesday look dry and in the mid-80s. Chances of showers and thunderstorms return Wednesday and build through Thursday, with highs in the upper 80s by week's end.
The task force meets again Monday.
