To get an idea of how bad the drought situation is in some parts of New Jersey, you don't need a rain gauge or bar charts showing stream flow rates.

For residents in the Sussex County town of Newton, all it takes is a quick glance at Morris Lake, the pristine reservoir that provides drinking water for about 8,000 people. Every week, the lake dips a few inches lower, and it's now at a level that hasn't been seen in nearly a decade.

"In nine years that I've been here, it's never been this bad," Newton Town Manager Thomas S. Russo Jr. said on Monday.

For Russo, "this bad" means the water level in the lake on Monday was 54 inches below the top of the reservoir's spillway. Just four days earlier, the water was 51 inches below the spillway, according to a report by the New Jersey Herald. And back in September 2015, the water was 18 inches below the spillway.

Even though that wasn't nearly as bad as the current level, it was enough to trigger alarm bells among Newton officials, and they imposed mandatory water use restrictions on their residents. More than a year later, those restrictions remain in place.

"That's unusual," Russo said of the lake's current level. "Since I've been here as manager, we've had levels of 20 or 30 (inches below the spillway), and times where it was overflowing. But I've never seen it like this."

Newton reservoir at 9-year low levelhttps://t.co/YO8ViDZqoe pic.twitter.com/GBUrTIcirK — New Jersey Herald (@NJHerald) November 7, 2016

The culprit is Mother Nature, which has been dropping only scarce amounts of rain in northern and central New Jersey during the past few months. The storage capacity in many major reservoirs in the region steadily dropped and stream flows dipped low, prompting the state Department of Environmental Protection to declare a drought warning in 14 counties, including Sussex, on Oct. 21.

Russo said residents and businesses in Newton have been doing a good job conserving water. But for the mandatory water restrictions to be lifted, they need a lot of rain nine miles away in Sparta, where the Morris Lake reservoir is located.

"It's an unusual position to be where you're praying for rain in another town," Russo said. "No offense to the people in Sparta, but I'm hoping for rain in Sparta."

The drought warning covers Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris, Ocean, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex, Union and Warren counties. A drought watch remains active for Burlington, Camden, Gloucester and Salem, leaving only three counties with no drought worries: Atlantic, Cape May and Cumberland.

Under a drought warning, the state cannot impose mandatory water restrictions. However, the DEP is strongly urging residents and businesses -- even those who are not in the warning areas -- to voluntarily conserve as much water as possible.

Small municipal water utilities, like the one in Newton, can order mandatory water-use restrictions if their water supply gets low.

Len Melisurgo may be reached at LMelisurgo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @LensReality or like him on Facebook. Find NJ.com on Facebook.