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This white pine tree that grows alongside the Belfast Rail Trail looks almost as orange as it is green. According to a forest pathologist with the Maine Forest Service, it is likely to have been stressed from the drought earlier this year and is dropping more needles than usual this fall. Abigail Curtis | BDN staff
This white pine tree that grows alongside the Belfast Rail Trail looks almost as orange as it is green. According to a forest pathologist with the Maine Forest Service, it is likely to have been stressed from the drought earlier this year and is dropping more needles than usual this fall. Abigail Curtis | BDN staff

Drought conditions extend through fall in parts of northern Maine

Contributed • December 1, 2021

By The Associated Press

FORT KENT  — Parts of northwestern Maine remain in a severe drought late this fall.

The U.S. Drought Monitor reported that as of Nov. 24 parts of northern Somerset and Franklin counties were experiencing severe drought conditions. Some adjacent areas, including parts of Aroostook and Piscataquis counties, were experiencing moderate drought.

Drought conditions have abated in most of New England, but some parts of far northern Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire were also experiencing abnormally dry conditions in late November, the monitor reported. The rest of the six-state region was clear of drought conditions, it reported.

Drought has caused problems for farmers in New England in recent years, though heavy storms helped ease those conditions this summer.

Much of the region was the site of severe drought earlier in the summer.

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