Many New Jersey residents awoke to rain Monday morning — not much, although flash floods filled the streets in a few Shore towns like Surf City, where about three inches fell on top of a high tide. But mostly scattered showers moved across the state. Still it wasn’t a drought-buster, State Climatologist David Robinson said. “These hit-or-miss showers” go to “replenishing the soil moisture, which reduces fire danger,” Robinson said, “but you need a real soaking to get down into the soil profile, get some runoff into our rivers that flow into the reservoir, get rain deeper down below the surface to replenish groundwater.”

Robinson said the drought watch declared by the state Department of Environmental Protection on Aug. 9 still holds, meaning residents are asked to voluntarily conserve water. A federal map shows severe drought conditions persist in Somerset, Union and northern Middlesex counties, and moderate drought in seven surrounding counties.