NEW YORK (AP) — New York’s mayor urged residents to take shorter showers, fix leaky faucets and conserve water, issuing a drought alert Saturday after a parched October here and across much of the United States.

A drought watch is the first of three potential tiers of water conservation guidelines, and Adams featured him in a video on social media as a measure to try to head off the possibility of a worse shortage in the most populous city in the United States.

“Mother Nature is in charge, and so we need to make sure we adapt,” said Adams, a Democrat.

He ordered all municipal agencies to prepare to implement their water conservation plans. He asked the public to do their part, such as turning off faucets while brushing teeth and sweeping sidewalks instead of watering them.

The mayor also urged residents to report open fire hydrants and other leaks into the street. The recommendation arrives a few days after the city repaired a leaking Brooklyn fire hydrant who fed a homemade goldfish pond on the sidewalk.

Just 0.01 inch (0.02 cm) of rain fell last month in the city’s Central Park, where October normally brings about 4.4 inches (11.2 cm) of precipitation, according to National Weather Service records. . Municipal Environmental Protection Department Commissioner Rohit Aggarwala said it was the driest October in over 150 years of records.

To compound the water shortage problem, the city is repair a large leaking aqueduct which carries water from the Catskill region, so residents rely more on reservoirs in the city’s northern suburbs. This area received 2 cm of rain last month, about a fifth of the October average, the mayor’s office said in a statement Saturday.

New York City uses an average of 1.1 billion gallons (4.2 billion liters) of water per day. That’s about 35 percent below the peak in 1979. The city attributes the decline to factors such as improved leak detection.

Last month, almost half the country was in a situation flash droughtwhich means rapid drying due to a combination of low precipitation and abnormally high temperatures. The North East closed the month with an unusual – one might even say bizarre – result. Warm Halloweenwith temperatures reaching the 70s and 80s (24 to 28 Celsius) from New York to Maine.

Experts attributed the sudden drought to a weather pattern that prevented moisture from moving north from the Gulf of Mexico.

Dry weather limited navigation on the Mississippi River and contributed to wildfires in the Midwest and East.

The National Weather Service continued Saturday to warn of high fire risk in places like Connecticut, where a the firefighter was killed last month while battling a days-long bushfire, apparently started by a poorly extinguished campfire.