Not as much rain these past few days, but if we look back towards last week, we had plenty, and that brings us some good news this week, as I talked to Corey Davis from the state climate office of North Carolina. As we look at North and South Carolina those rains of a week ago, they did their work, didn’t they?

“They really did, Mike, especially back last Wednesday and Thursday across central and eastern North Carolina, some areas racked up 3, 4, 5 inches of rain from some of those showers and thunderstorms. And giving a call to places like Onslow County, the Jacksonville area, they have had six to 10 inches of rain over the past two weeks, just some incredible amounts. And you think about those same areas, they had struggled to get rain pretty much all spring, even going back to the winter, they had been drier. So we’ve seen some nice recovery, and that shows up on the US Drought Monitor map this week, for the first time since the beginning of January this year, there is no severe drought on the map in eastern North Carolina. There’s still a little bit down along the coast in South Carolina, in the Myrtle Beach and Charleston areas. But South Carolina is also looking better other than some of those coastal areas. It’s pretty much back to near normal across most of South Carolina as well. So you said a mike that rain over the past week or two, it has really done its job at a pretty important time of the year for the farmers here.”

Even in Elizabeth City? You mean, there’s no drought in Elizabeth City?

“So those areas are looking better as well. They’ve picked up about two inches of rain over the past week to week and a half. They are still at a slight deficit for the overall season. Going back to the middle of March, they’re running about two inches below normal. So that’s pretty typical for that area. Again, the rain tends to be very hit or miss, and when they do miss out on the rain, then they can start to see impacts like dropping groundwater levels. But one thing we can say overall across the Carolinas is that we are in much better shape now than we were a few weeks ago. One area where we see that is in the topsoil moisture content. Back at the end of April, almost 50% of the topsoil across the state was rated as short, or very short in terms of moisture levels, that number this week is down to just 1% of the topsoil in North Carolina is short. So again, a really nice improvement here over the past few weeks.”

When we talk next week, we’ll be able to get a better recap of where we are for spring, but what we can say right now is, it’s been pretty warm, hasn’t it?

“Yeah, and that should not be a surprise. Even going back to March, we know that we were seeing above normal temperatures day and night. Back in April, we started seeing some of those summer-like afternoons in the upper 80s to low 90s, especially across eastern North Carolina, and those temperatures have really continued for most of May so far. At this point, it’s on pace for one of the top five warmest maize on record across both North and South Carolina. And when we look for the season as a whole again, going back to the beginning of March, it is on track to be the warmest spring on record across a good chunk of the Piedmont, places like Charlotte and Raleigh and say it will, and also some places further east, like Wilmington and Greenville. So again, undeniable warmth all spring.”

So far as we head into the last week of the season, farmers were able to get back into the fields a lot this week after last week’s rains. What are we seeing? As far as the Ag reports go, some good news there isn’t there?

“Yeah, you know, we mentioned that topsoil moisture, how that’s been improving, that’s one thing that’ll make those farmers happy. But also, we’re seeing those improvements reflected in the crop planting and in the crop conditions. Things like soybeans and peanuts are going in the ground ahead of schedule. That’s good news, especially when we’re coming off a couple weeks as wet as we have been, sometimes that can keep farmers out of the fields, but it seems like we’ve had just enough moisture to keep that moisture top toss and allow those farmers to still get out and do that planting. Corn planting is almost complete across the Carolinas, and we mentioned last week we’ve heard some really positive corn reports from places like Sampson County down in southeastern North Carolina. So those areas are looking really good going into the summer. We do still have some areas that were drier earlier in the year where we’re seeing some negative impacts on the crops. This week, we heard a report from Stokes County up across the northern Piedmont. They said, even though they’ve had some pretty good rain so far in May, they’re still seeing some of those forage crops growing a little bit slowly, and we see that reflected this week in the crop progress report from USDA, the winter wheat that’s already headed is running a little bit behind that five year average, so the rains have definitely helped, but again, we’re still feeling those effects of our drought from the winter and spring in Parts of the Carolinas.”

So what’s to come for the next week or so? What is our forecast look like? Are we going to continue to have some of these cooler temperatures? I know we have been warm, but the last couple of days have been very, very pleasant. What are we looking for?

“Yeah, really pleasant weather the last few days, and that will continue at least through the first part of the Memorial Day weekend. Actually, tomorrow morning could be one of our coldest mornings of the month. So far, some areas further north and west could see those low temperatures on Saturday drop down into the 40s. That will definitely be a shock to the system as we’re heading into the summer season. But Afternoon highs will also be running a few degrees below normal through the weekend, mostly mid to upper 70s, typically this time of the year, our average highs are in the low 80s. So again, won’t be a huge departure from that, but at least it will feel a little bit cooler than we’ve seen for most of the past month. Our next best chance of rain will come in on Sunday night and then into Memorial Day. On Monday, there’s a warm front that will be lifting to the north, so that will bring a chance of showers and storms throughout the day. On Monday, especially, it doesn’t look like it’ll be a holiday washout, but if folks are going to be out at a picnic or maybe on the lake, just keep in mind you may have some showers to dodge throughout the day. So overall, that’s our best chance of rain for the week. And then it looks like we’ll settle into more near normal temperatures as we head into the first part of next week.”