SARANAC LAKE — Saturday’s rain was a welcome event for meteorologists who have been keeping an eye on the increasingly severe drought across the Tri-Lakes region. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to reverse its effects.

On top of that, the area looks set for another week of dry weather, according to the National Weather Service’s Burlington, Vermont office, which serves northeastern New York.

NWS Burlington Meteorologist Maureen Hastings said the office is predicting a persistent ridge of high pressure setting up shop over the northeast for the time being.

“That’s going to be basically pulling right over the area,” she said. “When that happens, it tends to be dry.”

Hastings added that a cold front will be moving through the area on Thursday. While those are often a source of precipitation for the area, she said this one happens to be associated with a dry continental air mass, and is pretty weak. It is forecast to drop the temperatures a few degrees toward the end of the week, but it won’t bring any rain to the region.

“We’ll probably just have an increase of clouds in the afternoon, and that will be about it,” she said.

The U.S. Drought Monitor is a weekly report that tracks drought conditions across the country, using a variety of factors. It’s released in part by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, under which the NWS is also organized. It currently shows the Tri-Lakes region as being either in various stages of drought, with severe drought conditions across parts of Essex County. To view the current ratings and map, as well as ones from past weeks, visit tinyurl.com/3yxa3xvp.

The next weekly report is due to come out on Thursday. Hastings said that even with the recent rains since the USDM’s last report was issued — including a recorded 0.99 inches of rain on Thursday and 0.37 inches on Saturday at the Adirondack Regional Airport in Lake Clear — the next one isn’t expected to improve.

“It’s my understanding that, at the least, they’re just going to call it status quo with no changes,” she said.

One bright spot is that the USDM is characterizing the current conditions as a “short-term drought,” as opposed to long-term, which — provided it doesn’t eventually become a long-term drought — is easier to rebound from.

“A long-term drought is one that has been setting up for an extended period of time, so multiple months into years — a lot more persistent,” she said. “Whereas for us, the first part of the summer was actually quite wet, and then the switch turned off.”

Hastings said the short-term impacts are largely centered around agriculture, with some crops failing and water having to be brought in for livestock.

Going forward, Hastings added that it remains unclear when the next soaking rain will come.

“Unfortunately, there’s nothing definitive out there right now,” she said. “The models have been trying to show something coming down out of Canada — maybe a potential rain system — early next week, maybe Sunday or Monday. But, there’s not a lot of agreement (between the weather models whether) that’s going to track over us (or if) that’s going to track to the west. So there’s still a lot of uncertainty on exactly when we might see a decent amount of rain.”