By Fredrick Kunkle and Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, October 19, 2007 2:09 PM

The parched earth is getting a sip of relief today, but not enough to lift the region's drought.

As Washington tied a 12-year-old record for consecutive days without rain and federal officials designated almost all of Virginia a disaster area, forecasters said the expected amount of rain -- perhaps a quarter- to a half-inch -- would be only enough to reduce the yellow pallor from people's yards and raise the level of beleaguered streams.

"Most areas will see some rain. It won't be enough to break the drought or anything, though," said Brian LaSorsa, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sterling. He said more rain is expected early next week, but the region will need that and more to make up for the dearth of precipitation during the past 10 months.

With temperatures still breaking 80 deep into October, it may feel a bit like Manaus, Brazil, or Bangkok, Thailand. There is a 30 percent chance of more rain tomorrow morning, with cooler, drier weather forecast for later in the day.

The front may also bring gusty winds, the National Weather Service advises, but nothing like the thunderstorms that destroyed homes in northern Michigan and spawned tornados throughout the Midwest. A tornado in rural northeastern Missouri sent a mobile home sailing for a couple of miles and killed two people inside. The October storms also spawned a twister in Pensacola, Fla., and dropped hail on downtown Chicago during the afternoon rush hour.

The Midwest didn't need the storms but it did need the rain, as does this region, which has been thirsty all year. The Washington area has received 10.23 inches less of rain than normal since Jan. 1, according to measurements taken at Reagan National Airport. Yesterday was the 33rd consecutive day without measurable precipitation, tying a record set in 1995, LaSorsa said.

With a high-pressure system anchored in the Southeastern United States, most of the moisture the region would normally receive has been shunted north to New York, LaSorsa said. New York also is dry but is closer to normal precipitation levels than Washington is, he said.

Drought also has hit other parts of the country.

Much of the Southeast and mid-Atlantic are dry, and parts of the West have had extreme drought, with some areas locked into a dry pattern for about two years, said Alex Sosnowski, a meteorologist with AccuWeather in State College, Pa. On the other hand, heavier-than-usual rain has swamped the Plains between Texas and Minnesota, Sosnowski said.

In the Washington region, the drought has been blamed for killing 60 percent of some crops in Virginia and Maryland, driving down harvests of Chesapeake Bay crabs and disrupting their normal patterns, and depressing sales of plants and shrubs at garden stores.

Several jurisdictions have taken action to reduce water demand. Loudoun County has issued mandatory restrictions, and other localities have declared drought watches and asked for voluntary conservation measures. Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) announced yesterday that the federal government designated 78 additional Virginia counties and 34 cities as disaster areas, adding to 15 counties listed previously. Kaine also imposed a statewide ban on open fires.

The disaster designations allow eligible farmers to apply for loans and other federal relief. All of Maryland was declared a drought disaster area in August.

This month, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers loosed a surge of water from a Western Maryland reservoir to learn more about the drought's effect on water flows. The extra water, set free Oct. 7, reached a key point in the Potomac River early Sunday, seven days later.

More water was released this week to see how quickly it would flow from the Jennings Randolph Reservoir in Maryland's panhandle to Little Falls, the data-collecting point for the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin.

The test measures the time it takes for the surge of water to reach the downstream measuring points. The data are used to determine when engineers need to release water to get it to users in case of extreme drought.

"If we can refine our understanding of how travel time works, it means we could perhaps craft a release strategy," said Erik Hagen, director of operations for the commission. "The overall goal of the test releases is to improve the future water supply reliability for Washington."

Hagen said conditions were optimal to conduct the tests. The season for such releases runs from July to October; reservoirs are full; and rivers and streams are at low flow levels.

The last such test was done in 1999, when the region experienced record low rainfall and low water supply levels. Water from those releases took nine days to travel downriver.

Staff writer Joe Holley and the Associated Press contributed to this report.