Warm weather brings out the peepers

I disagree with your assessment of local conditions - I think things seem quite dry for late winter, way off the norm. We've had record low levels of snow and rain this winter - nearly nothing really, 2 feet off of avg here in Boston! Similar for most of New England.

Just because we've had a smidge of rain last week, and the ground is not dust dry, don't make the mistake of thinking that things are wet enough - the ground is supposed to be saturated right now, like a soppy sponge.

You mention "drought" - but that is mostly a human-centric measure pertaining to long term supplies of drinking/irrigation water. I'm not talking about that (nor am I too worried about it right now). I'm talking about distributed seasonal microclimate. Early flowers (like crocuses and daffs), flowering trees (like crabapples), beneficial insects and animals (like mason bees and peepers) don't care if the Quabbin is full, if it's too dry where they are.

Just for example - if you hear peepers now, but don't see puddles of standing water on the ground, you will hear very few peepers next year because that is where they lay their eggs and the tadpoles do their rapid development. And fewer peepers means more pest bugs, as peepers eat lots of the early season insects that chew up our trees and flowering plants.

I am not running down the street screaming that the sky is falling. But fore-warned is fore-armed.

Seriously, go for a walk in the woods and let us know what you think. Normally, you wouldn't be able to go for a walk because there would be a lot of frozen snow, ice, etc. Or at least it would be very wet in a lot of areas - very wet. But, neither of the above is true right now. Remember (and I keep forgetting every time I go for a bike ride with shorts and short sleeves) - this is mid-March.
Probably the most telling sign is that March and April are usually off-limits for mt biking - it's just too wet and muddy and the trails get damaged by riders. However, after walking in the woods all winter, I knew that the trails were very dry and perfectly rideable and went for a ride on Sat. Any other year, I just wouldn't do that.

Heard my first peepers on Saturday. ;-) Hope they make it thru the spring....