The last I had heard, we were still ~6" below the yearly norm and this is not taking into account previous years' deficits... The governor had the USDA declare 54 counties in PA as drought disaster areas back on 10/22 (I didn't hear THAT on the news)!

It appears that a weather pattern is in place that encourages the formation of nor'easters which = more rain. However it seems the last few storms have been rather stingy... One is due to develop tonight and we'll see what happens....

Paula - here is an interesting article I found on weather.com. Apparently there is an "American Water Resources Association" conference going on in Philly right now and I think that is where the paper got the info that you saw... However, the article that I linked to, appears to more accurately describe what was discussed... I.e., the consensus so far is that the October rains have been beneficial, but if the pattern doesn't persist, then things will be dire come spring. And no, the drought is not over.

Yes, that was the blurb in the Inquirer about the meeting, Jenny. They picked out a sentence or two, from the context, and present it their way. Journalists cannot be counted on to present a FULL story, about anything. No wonder Steve Carlton never consented to another interview after the first one. Got 1/2" of rain Tuesday here, so far our total locally is 9-3/4" , since 9/27. It's great not having to water anything.