As she washed dishes on an early September evening, Barbara Winslow felt the water pressure start to drop. She knew the state had been in a worsening drought, so she turned off the tap.

” ‘You know, I’ll wait until tomorrow,’ ” the Porter resident recalled thinking. “And the next morning, my daughter took a shower and completely lost water. Like, she was in the shower — mid-shampoo.”

That was about two weeks ago, she said. The well has been dry ever since.

About half of Maine residents rely on private wells to supply water to their homes, according to the Maine Geological Survey. But prolonged dry conditions lead to lower groundwater levels, making it difficult or impossible to draw water from some wells.

More Maine wells have been reported dry this year than in the last four years combined, according to state data. And it’s not clear whether a late-in-the-week run of rain will be enough to restore them, as the weekslong drought expands to cover nearly three-quarters of Maine.

So far, at least 173 wells have been reported dry in 2025, according to the Maine Emergency Management Agency, which collects self-reported data from well owners through an online survey.

Between 2021 and 2024, the agency received 90 reports, including 14 last year and 63 in 2022, the most during that stretch.

The vast majority of newly dry wells are in southern Maine. Oxford County, where Winslow and her family live, has seen at least 58 wells dry up.

“Certainly we saw a big increase in dry wells, and they are concentrated in the part of the state where drought conditions are the worst,” said Nick Stasulis, a scientist with U.S. Geological Survey and co-chair of the state’s Drought Task Force.

It’s also possible more people have learned how to report them, he said.

Maine has endured dry spells and droughts nearly every year since the early 2000s, but they rarely come so late in the year. Most have happened during the spring in recent years, according to Stasulis.

“But we don’t tend to notice it because groundwater levels are higher at that time of year naturally, and (it’s not) our peak growing season,” Stasulis said.

Last year’s drought came late, too, but it was offset by autumn rain, he said.

DROUGHT DEEPENED

More than 12% of Maine is facing extreme drought conditions and all of the state is at least abnormally dry, according to U.S. Drought Monitor data released Thursday.

The monitor reflects conditions through Tuesday, meaning it does not account for Wednesday and Thursday’s rain.

Extreme drought conditions, first reported last week along the state’s western edge, now extend all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, covering parts of Androscoggin, Cumberland, Franklin, Hancock, Kennebec, Knox, Oxford, Somerset, Waldo and Washington counties.

Another roughly 47% of the state is in a severe drought, and about 12% is facing moderate drought. Drought touches all 16 counties.

In a severe drought, air and water quality are typically poor, groundwater levels drop and irrigation ponds run dry. Some crops are affected in both yield and size, warnings are issued regarding outdoor burning, golf courses begin to conserve water and trees become brittle, according to the drought monitor.

As conditions become extreme, crop loss worsens and dairy farms begin to struggle. Rivers run shallow and warm, and wells dry up.

DRILLS AND DELAYS

Benoit Levesque, office manager at A-Z Water Systems in New Gloucester, said he’s seen an uptick in calls, especially among property owners with dug wells.

Without waiting for rain, flows can still be restored in drilled wells — more common in southern Maine — by crews drilling deeper or pumping pressurized water into the well to break up built-up sediment, a process called hydrofracking. But it can take weeks or months to get an appointment.

Levesque said it usually takes several weeks to plan and permit a new well, even before factoring worker availability — adding that A-Z is booked into December for normal well installations, but dry wells get priority.

“When it comes to people who are out of water, usually we try to fit them in within 5 to 7 weeks or so,” he said.

But dug wells, which are more common in rural areas, are typically shallower than wells that have been drilled into bedrock, leaving them more vulnerable to changes in the groundwater level.

“Dug well-wise, there’s not much you can really do (if it runs dry), unfortunately,” Levesque said. “Yes, it can come back. Let’s say if we all of the sudden got a month straight of heavy rain.”

That’s what Winslow, the Porter resident, is hoping for. When she woke up Thursday morning, she put out a barrel and buckets to catch the long-awaited rainwater.

On Wednesday, she lifted the cover off her well for the first time in the five years she’s lived on the property, and she dropped in a pebble.

“You can hear water,” she said. “But it’s not quite high enough to reach the pump.”