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New Hampshire Groundwater Level MonitoringFebruary 2022New Hampshire Geological Survey29 Hazen Drive, PO Box 95Concord, New Hampshire 03302-0095March 7, 2022

GROUNDWATER CONDITIONS SUMMARYFebruary 2022 was generally a warmer and wetter than normal month in New Hampshire. State-wideprecipitation in New Hampshire for the month of February was above normal, with 134% of normalprecipitation1 received state-wide, according to the Northeast Regional Climate Center. Several areas inwestern and northern New Hampshire received below normal to normal precipitation amounts, whilethe rest of the State received above normal precipitation amounts. Corresponding below normal snowdepth conditions persist in northern and western portions of the state. Percent of normal precipitationin New Hampshire determined from Quantitative Precipitation Estimates provided by the NationalWeather Service Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service (AHPS) ranged from a low of 50 to 75% in theUpper Valley and far northern New Hampshire, to highs of 200 to 300% received in a some areas in theWhite Mountains region. Figure 1 shows the distribution of percent of normal February precipitationacross New Hampshire from AHPS.According to the National Drought Management current conditions web page the extent of areas withdrought conditions in New Hampshire has slightly contracted since last month. All of the Monadnock,Merrimack Valley, and Seacoast regions, and parts of the Dartmouth-Lake Sunapee and Lakes regions(62.5% of the state) are not in a classified drought condition. Abnormally Dry (D0) conditions havecontracted slightly from last month to include 34.2% of the state. Moderate Drought (D1) conditionspersist in 3.3% of the state, unchanged from last month. All of the area designated as Moderate Drought(D1) are located within Coos County. The extent of areas of Abnormally Dry (D0) and Moderate Drought(D1) conditions combined cover 37.5% of the State of New Hampshire. Figure 2 shows the locations andintensity of current classified drought conditions in New Hampshire.Figures 1 and 2 show the monthly status of groundwater levels for both bedrock and overburden wells inthe New Hampshire Geological Survey’s groundwater level monitoring network. The network currentlyincludes 11 bedrock and 19 overburden observation wells, all of which are measured monthly by hand.Bedrock wells are installed into bedrock and overburden wells are installed in the unconsolidatedmaterials above bedrock. Using the monthly hand measurements, monthly averages and percentilestatistics are calculated. Only wells with a period of record (POR) of 10 years or more for all months of theyear are placed within statistical categories of low, below normal, normal, above normal, and high(symbols dark red through blue, corresponding to 10, 10-25, 25-75, 75-90, and 90 percentile classes,respectively). The current monthly readings are summarized in Figures 1 and 2, and in Table 1 for all 30wells in the network. The current depth to groundwater for each individual well along with the annualhydrographs for wells with POR 10, or annual measurements with monthly median and monthly range ofvalues for wells with POR 10 are shown in the following figures.1Based on the most recent 30-year normal period, currently 1991 – 2020

In general, the February 2022 well measurements show groundwater levels in most of the Statecontinue to be at normal to high levels. Groundwater levels in three wells located in Colebrook andStewartstown in the Great North Woods region continue to be at or below normal levels to low levels.Record high groundwater levels for the month of February were recorded in the shallow bedrockcouplet members in both East Kingston and Concord, as shown in Table 1.Of the five wells with 10yr POR, BBW-53 and RGWB-01 & RGWB-02 in Barrington and Stewartstown,respectively, are at the highest levels recorded for the month of February thus far. The replacementoverburden well in Concord (CVW-02.1) is slightly above the median level for February, and the bedrockwell in Northwood is slightly below the median level for February.Groundwater levels in Nashua continue to be at or just below record-high levels for the POR for thatwell for January. The level in the Nashua well (NAW-218) is being affected by dams on Pennichuck Brookrelated to a water supply reservoir.NOTES:For further information of the New Hampshire Geological Survey’s groundwater level monitoringnetwork, please visit the NHGS information page at the USGS National Ground-Water MonitoringNetwork Portal or Groundwater - NH DES.The hydrograph plots and monthly statistics tables were created with R version 4.1.2 using a modifiedversion of the Hydrologic AnalySis Package (HASP) provided by USGS. The HASP open-source code isavailable at the USGS-R/HASP page on Github.If you are interested in receiving the monthly New Hampshire Groundwater Level Monitoring report byemail, please contact Michael.W.Howley@des.nh.gov to be added to the email distribution list.

Figure 1. Groundwater Monitoring Network showing groundwater levels relative to statistical envelopescalculated over each well’s period of record (POR) and percent normal precipitation map for February2022 (National Weather Service – Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service).

Figure 2. Groundwater Monitoring Network showing groundwater levels relative to statistical envelopescalculated over each well’s period of record (POR) and drought areas according to data released by theU.S. Drought Monitor on March 3, 2022.

Table 1. Summary of groundwater levels sorted by well type. 90 Percentile, High75 – 90 Percentile, Above Normal25 – 50 Percentile, Normal10 -25 Percentile, Below Normal 10 Percentile, Low 10yr POR, Not AnalyzedWellADW-14TownAlbanyWell ringtonOverburden21-232.673.57Not .9641.17Not .7017.71Above 28.22Above 1.8512.71Above 1High1.460.42NFW-53New DurhamOverburden58-6018.6419.01Above Normal0.370.36NLW-01New ortOverburden54-565.696.15Above 6.1016.99High0.890.18EAWB-01East 2East B-01NorthwoodBedrock30-1673.863.27Not 4.8Not 7.51Not ck20-30323.6022.84Below Normal-1.51.00** All Time High or Low level for current monthDepth toWater(ft)6.65MonthlyAverage(ft)6.62Current StatusNormalDeparturefrom Avg.(ft)-0.03Changesince lastmonth(ft)0.14

Site ID: ADW-14Current data value: 6.65 on 02/22/2022Period of Record Monthly Statistics for ADW-14Depth to water, feet below land hPOR27Note: Highlighted values in the table indicate closest statistic to the most recent measurement.

Site ID: ADW-15Current data value: 8.41 on 02/22/2022Period of Record Monthly Statistics for ADW-15Depth to water, feet below land hPOR27Note: Highlighted values in the table indicate closest statistic to the most recent measurement.

Site ID: BBW-53POR 10 YearsCurrent data value: 2.67 on 02/24/2022

Site ID: CBW-34Current data value: 13.26 on 02/22/2022Period of Record Monthly Statistics for CBW-34Depth to water, feet below land c13.7813.2212.8312.4111.8611.6110.0726Note: Highlighted values in the table indicate closest statistic to the most recent measurement.

Site ID: CTW-73Current data value: 8.10 on 03/04/2022Period of Record Monthly Statistics for CBW-34Depth to water, feet below land hPOR26Note: Highlighted values in the table indicate closest statistic to the most recent measurement.

Site ID: CVW-02.1POR 10 YearsCurrent data value: 40.96 on 02/24/2022

Site ID: CVW-04Current data value: 16.70 on 02/23/2022Period of Record Monthly Statistics for CVW-04Depth to water, feet below land .8718.4617.7316.4615.9115.2855MonthPOR56Note: Highlighted values in the table indicate closest statistic to the most recent measurement.

Site ID: DDW-04Current data value: 38.60 on 02/23/2022Period of Record Monthly Statistics for DDW-46Depth to water, feet below land Dec39.7639.6239.4139.1638.7737.9937.6527Note: Highlighted values in the table indicate closest statistic to the most recent measurement.

Site ID: EPW-90Current data value: 27.16 on 02/23/2022Period of Record Monthly Statistics for EPW-90Depth to water, feet below land .9929.6129.2728.6227.3225.8614MonthPOR16Note: Highlighted values in the table indicate closest statistic to the most recent measurement.

Site ID: FKW-01Current data value: 12.30 on 02/23/2022Period of Record Monthly Statistics for FKW-01Depth to water, feet below land 0.078.6151MonthPOR53Note: Highlighted values in the table indicate closest statistic to the most recent measurement.

Site ID: GSW-75Current data value: 60.23 on 02/23/2022Period of Record Monthly Statistics for GSW-75Depth to water, feet below land Dec65.3963.8862.8062.3060.3059.6958.7726Note: Highlighted values in the table indicate closest statistic to the most recent measurement.

Site ID: LCW-01Current data value: 0.30 on 02/24/2022Period of Record Monthly Statistics for LCW-01Depth to water, feet below land hPOR44Note: Highlighted values in the table indicate closest statistic to the most recent measurement.

Site ID: LLW-19Current data value: 11.85 on 02/22/2022Period of Record Monthly Statistics for LLW-19Depth to water, feet below land ec14.7014.1713.9613.3712.3611.5110.9827Note: Highlighted values in the table indicate closest statistic to the most recent measurement.

Site ID: NAW-218Current data value: 26.64 on 02/23/2022Period of Record Monthly Statistics for NAW-218Depth to water, feet below land .6228.7628.2727.5927.1926.0854MonthPOR53Note: Highlighted values in the table indicate closest statistic to the most recent measurement.

Site ID: NFW-53Current data value: 18.64 on 02/22/2022Period of Record Monthly Statistics for NFW-53Depth to water, feet below land .3119.1318.8818.7118.4918.0928MonthPOR27Note: Highlighted values in the table indicate closest statistic to the most recent measurement.

Site ID: NLW-01Current data value: 5.49 on 02/23/2022Period of Record Monthly Statistics for NLW-01Depth to water, feet below land .9015.2712.157.986.344.703.6069MonthPOR72Note: Highlighted values in the table indicate closest statistic to the most recent measurement.

Site ID: NPW-03Current data value: 5.69 on 02/23/2022Period of Record Monthly Statistics for NPW-03Depth to water, feet below land hPOR27Note: Highlighted values in the table indicate closest statistic to the most recent measurement.

Site ID: NPW-06Current data value: 6.18 on 02/23/2022Period of Record Monthly Statistics for NPW-06Depth to water, feet below land 3.1326Note: Highlighted values in the table indicate closest statistic to the most recent measurement.

Site ID: OXW-38Current data value: 35.82 on 02/22/2022Period of Record Monthly Statistics for OXW-38Depth to water, feet below land .0835.8835.7235.0834.5333.5926MonthPOR26Note: Highlighted values in the table indicate closest statistic to the most recent measurement.

Site ID: CVWB-01Current data value: 18.73 on 02/23/2022Period of Record Monthly Statistics for CVWB-01Depth to water, feet below land .9221.2419.9719.7019.5617.4713MonthPOR13Note: Highlighted values in the table indicate closest statistic to the most recent measurement.

Site ID: CVWB-02Current data value: 12.26 on 02/23/2022Period of Record Monthly Statistics for CVWB-02Depth to water, feet below land .8614.9014.2613.2512.4912.3313MonthPOR13Note: Highlighted values in the table indicate closest statistic to the most recent measurement.

Site ID: DDWB-01Current data value: 16.10 on 02/23/2022Period of Record Monthly Statistics for DDWB-01Depth to water, feet below land Dec19.5819.4419.3018.3017.3116.5615.6312Note: Highlighted values in the table indicate closest statistic to the most recent measurement.

Site ID: EAWB-01Current data value: 21.69 on 02/24/2022Period of Record Monthly Statistics for EAWB-01Depth to water, feet below land .3523.0622.6622.0521.9621.8613MonthPOR13Note: Highlighted values in the table indicate closest statistic to the most recent measurement.