Overview

• Governor Kathy Hochul and the Department of Environmental Conservation announced the watch on Friday, covering 20 counties from Long Island to western and northern New York.
• Areas listed include Suffolk, Nassau, Oswego, the northern portion of Cayuga, and counties such as Chautauqua, Niagara, Monroe, Erie, Jefferson, and Warren.
• A watch is the first of four state advisory levels before warning, emergency, and disaster, and it carries no mandatory water-use restrictions at this time.
• Officials urged residents—especially households on private wells—to cut usage by fixing leaks, watering lawns less, taking shorter showers, and reusing collected water.
• The designation follows dry summer conditions reflected in indicators such as Islip’s roughly 8 inches of rain since June versus a normal 11-plus and Oswego’s 4 inches since July 1 versus a typical 6.6 inches.