SARANAC LAKE — A glance at a backyard, stream or area golf course is often enough to give the picture: it’s been a dry summer in the Adirondacks.

The lack of rainfall, so far, is a sharp break from the past five seasons — all of which saw above-average precipitation according to data collected by the National Weather Service’s equipment station at the Adirondack Regional Airport (SLK), located about 5 miles northwest of the village of Saranac Lake in Lake Clear.

NWS Burlington Meteorologist Jessica Storm said the Tri-Lakes area has several chances for rain this week, although none of those are likely to produce enough precipitation to completely offset the abnormally dry conditions in place currently. Storm said in order for that to happen, the area would need to see several inches of rainfall and the rainfall this week is expected to remain under an inch for most spots locally.

Rather than a widespread, or extended duration rainfall, Storm said the precipitation expected this week is more in the form of convective thunderstorms that tend to pop up quickly over a small area, resulting in a localized downpour that is usually short-lived. Storm said it’s difficult in advance to pinpoint where these will form.

The predicted rainfall for the Tri-Lakes region through Thursday ranges from a couple tenths of an inch to 1.5 inches in areas where the thunderstorms are more persistent.

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By the numbers

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SLK averages 4.06 inches of rain in July and 3.56 inches in August each year, or a total of 7.62 inches between the two months. From 2020 and 2024, the location observed a combined July and August average rainfall of 10.17 inches, with each year in that time period above average. It ranged from a low of 8.07 inches in 2022 to a high of 13.52 inches in 2023.

For 2025, the airport has received 3.87 inches of rain — with almost all of it (3.53 inches) in July and just 0.34 inches so far in August, as of Saturday.

While climate trends have pointed to increasingly wet and warm summers for the Northeast, climate and weather are related but different terms. The former describes long-term overall shifts in the latter, which is quite variable.

The dry weather has been the result of persistent high-pressure systems over the past couple of months, which tend to push rainstorms away from the area, according to NWS Burlington Meteorologist Jessica Storm. Besides less precipitation than normal, the high pressure has also brought above-average temperatures and lower humidity values, both of which accentuate drought effects, such as soil and vegetation drying out.

The combination has resulted in an “abnormally dry” conditions rating for the area by the U.S. Drought Monitor, a weekly report that tracks drought conditions released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the University of Nebraska’s National Drought Mitigation Center and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

It’s the least severe of five ratings the USDM assigns for dry conditions, which also include, in order of increasing severity, “moderate drought,” “severe drought,” “extreme drought” and “exceptional drought.” Conditions are worse across other parts of the Northeast, with some of Vermont and most of New Hampshire in a “moderate drought” and parts of Maine in a “severe drought” in the latest map, released on Thursday. To view the current ratings and map, as well as ones from past weeks, visit tinyurl.com/3yxa3xvp.

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Defining drought

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While the USDM has its own set of ratings for its maps, they are not tethered to any one specific metric, and there is no set quantitative definition of what constitutes a drought. That’s because they tend to be multifaceted and manifest as the result of an interplay between a variety of short and long-term weather, topographical and human factors, such as a region’s agricultural season.

Instead, when assigning drought ratings, USDM staff look to a variety of weather data — such as soil moisture, recent precipitation and antecedent weather conditions — and insights and observations from local experts as to the specific impacts of dry weather conditions unique to an area or region. That numerical and qualitative data is then analyzed together by USDM staff before assigning drought ratings as they draw the weekly maps.