So, waking up this morning and yesterday morning, I saw frost on the windshield, frost on the ground, and we are in the middle of a bitter cold spell here in the Carolinas. I got state assistant climatologist Corey Davis here. Corey, with this bitter cold that we are experiencing right now, what’s the chance of some wintry precipitation in the area and in the Carolinas in general?
“Well, Kyle, there is no doubt we are officially in the winter right now. Really, since the start of December, we have been in a pretty cold pattern, most afternoons in the 40s. But today is especially going to be a cold one. We will barely make it out of the 30s in most areas this afternoon, and you’re right waking up this morning, we’re below freezing across a good chunk of especially North Carolina. We’re also watching some moisture move in. This is a system that we’ve been tracking over the last couple days. An area of low pressure formed down along the Gulf Coast yesterday morning, and as we often see in any season, when you see low pressure over a coastal area, it tends to bring in lots of moisture.
“So that’s what we’re watching move in right now. Starting very late last night, we started seeing that moisture move into the mountains. It’s now spreading over the rest of the state and will continue to do that during the day today. And we are starting to see some snowfall, especially up along the Virginia border and in some of those northwestern areas. Now for folks in the Raleigh area, you might see some flakes this morning, but we’re not looking for any widespread snow accumulations. Those are mainly going to be north of Interstate 40, and even there, we’re only looking at maybe a half-inch to an inch in total.
“There’s also a chance for a glaze of ice in some areas. Again, the better chance will be as you go further north and especially west into the mountains, but there could always be some slick spots out there, especially on those bridges and overpasses. So don’t be surprised if you encounter one. But we don’t expect a major frozen problem this morning.
“Now, as we go through the rest of the day today, those temperatures will rise above freezing, and that rain will taper off, especially in those northern and western areas, and start to shift off to the east. Nothing frozen expected, especially down at the coast, but this will be a pretty heavy rain event over the next couple days for those coastal areas, looking at potential rainfall accumulations of up to 2 inches. So, this will be the first really solid rain event some of those areas have had in over a couple months.”
And we just had another rain event just a few days ago. Not like heavy, but more of a steady rain over a couple-hour period. So, any idea what those rain totals were from some of those rain events on Tuesday?
“Yeah, that’s a great way to describe it. We did see that rain move across the state during the day on Tuesday. Across the Piedmont in North Carolina, we were mostly in that half-inch to 1-inch range. So, you’re right. This is not the sort of rain that’s going to immediately make a difference in our drought, but it was at least enough to keep our head above water, so to speak, in terms of moisture content.
“The rain was a little bit heavier down at the coast, especially in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, parts of the southern coastal plain in North Carolina. We saw some totals over 2 inches in some of those spots, like down in Wilmington. So that certainly was a good rain event for those areas.
“Another challenge is that that rain was moving in on Tuesday morning as our usual weekly drought assessment was taking place. So, most of that moisture will be considered for next week, in addition to the rain that we’re seeing this weekend. It looks like in total; we could see a pretty widespread inch and a half to 2 inches at least across the eastern half of North and South Carolina. In total for this past week, I would expect that could at least bring some one-category improvements. Some of those areas that have been in moderate drought actually moved back just to that abnormally dry range.
“And we already did see some improvements on this week’s drought map. Up in the Rocky Mount area in eastern North Carolina, they had been in that severe drought, or D2, category for several months now. Really, they’ve just seen a stabilization of conditions. They had a good round of rain in late October. They picked up some more rain earlier this week. That really helped their groundwater levels, their streamflow levels, their soil moisture levels all recover a little bit, and we just didn’t see the support for severe drought in those areas.
“So, at this point, we’re still looking at pretty widespread moderate drought, especially across central and eastern North Carolina. But again, with the rain that’s already happened this week and is coming down today and tomorrow, we do expect to see some improvements on next week’s map.”
Took the question right out of my mouth. I was getting ready to ask, like, I know that rain was on Tuesday, and the drought map normally comes out on Tuesday. So, is there any type of looking at the rain that may be falling while you’re putting together the map to kind of say, “OK, we think this is how it’s going to look today”? Or do you just like Monday as the cutoff, and then anything that happens on Tuesday, you just go to the next week?
“Yeah, we can give sort of a behind the scenes of our drought monitoring process here. So, the weekly cutoff is at 7 a.m. on Tuesday. All of the data that we look at is backward-facing. It ends at 7 a.m. on Tuesday. So, when we looked at the precipitation totals, all of it was through Tuesday morning. When we looked at the groundwater and streamflow levels, those were as of Tuesday morning as well.
“With that said, it’s hard not to consider rain that is already falling during the day. So, we did take a look at some of the totals that we had already seen and the forecast for what we were expecting later this week. Really, that just helps to frame our perspective, knowing that areas that have been dry lately may not have seen that relief through Tuesday morning, but that they were expecting some later this week. And that’s something we communicate with the U.S. Drought Monitor authors, just giving them a heads-up that, hey, we do expect to bring out the eraser next week, be able to make some improvements on that map. And of course, we’ll see what actually happens when this event is over and what those final totals look like.”
All right. Well, let’s look at the forecast. Like I said, bitterly cold this morning, barely going to get out of the 30s this afternoon. How’s that going to look for the weekend? And let’s kind of head into December. How’s the rest of the month going to look?
“Yeah, starting with today. The message I’ve had this week for folks who have had questions about anything frozen is that no matter what form of precipitation is falling today, it is still going to be cold and wet. So probably not one of those days where you want to be spending a lot of time outside. We will have that lingering rain, especially down east into Saturday, and it looks like there’s even a chance of rain showers continuing through Sunday and possibly Monday. Again, mainly for those coastal areas. We’ll have a stalled frontal boundary to our south, and that will continue to fuel some of those showers on through the rest of the weekend.
“We will see at least a small bounce-back in those temperatures. It looks like we’ll be back in the upper 40s by tomorrow, around 50 on Sunday, and then probably back into the 40s on Monday and Tuesday as another round of some cooler air moves in. For the first half of December, really going out through next weekend and early the following week, it looks like cool weather will continue to be the story. There may be another reinforcing shot there as we get into next weekend.
“But after that, we really see a pattern change on the horizon. We talked last week about this La Niña pattern that’s in place for this winter. Typically, that’s a warmer and a drier pattern for our part of the country, and it looks like we’ll finally start to move into that warmer and drier pattern by the middle of December. For the last two weeks of the month, things are looking overwhelmingly warm without a lot of rain chances in that time. So even though we’ve started the winter on a pretty cold and wet note, it looks like things will change and we’ll get back into that typical La Niña warm, dry pattern within the next couple of weeks.”
It wouldn’t be the Carolinas if the temperature keeps going like a roller coaster.
“That’s right, and those Christmas Day temperatures are often warmer than we see on Easter, and it would not surprise me if that’s the case this year as well.”