It has been the first week of 2026, and wouldn’t you know it, dryness is in the air. No precipitation has really come through the Carolinas. And what is that all about? Well, we’ve got state assistant climatologist Corey Davis here. Corey, it was a lack of precipitation, lack of rain here in the Carolinas. Did we see any rain anywhere?
“Well, Kyle, for those of us in the drought world, like myself, the one thing we really wanted for Christmas was just a decent precipitation event. It didn’t have to be snow. We were looking for any sort of precipitation, and we really haven’t seen that over the last couple weeks. If we go back to Christmas Day, most of North and South Carolina has seen less than half an inch of rain, and especially across central North Carolina, we’ve seen totals of less than a tenth of an inch of rain over that two-week period. You’re right, it has been bone-dry in most areas, really, since the end of last year. And we can actually take that back even further to the beginning of November. That’s when we started getting in this really dry stretch, less than 3 inches of rain across much of North Carolina over that time period. So that does have our drought in a little bit worse situation here to start the new year. So unfortunately, no rain in our rearview mirror. We’re hoping we’ll have a little bit better chances of some in the forecast.”
Now you just started to talk about the drought map. What impact has it had on the drought map? Are we starting to see more severe drought creeping on the drought map?
“That’s right. You think about where we were at the end of last year. It was mostly abnormally dry to moderate drought conditions across the Carolinas, but we have started to see that severe drought creep in, especially this week. One area that really stands out as dry is the southern mountains in North Carolina and some of those high-elevation areas in South Carolina. In spots, they’re going on five weeks in a row without a significant rain event, which we say is about a quarter inch. That’s the amount that usually takes to moisten the ground to tamp down some of that dryness, and again, we just have not seen that significant rain over that last month or so. We’re also seeing across the central part of North Carolina those severe drought conditions emerging, and that matches up with some of the impacts that we’re seeing. Those streamflow levels are getting very low. Folks, if you’re walking out around your house, especially in your backyard, you may notice that topsoil is very dry, even in some of the usual shaded spots that tend to hold on to that moisture a little bit better, and then a lot of those lakes and ponds are starting to drop as well. So again, that just reflects that lack of rainfall, not just over the last couple of weeks, but even over the last couple months.”
And what impact is that having on farmers right now, the winter planting season going on at the moment? What impacts is all this drought having on them?
“Yeah, this has been an interesting drought for agriculture. You know, we started getting into this dry spell and drought back in the middle of August. That’s when we switched over from a wetter pattern into a drier pattern. And at first, the farmers did not mind that at all. They had seen so much rain, especially in July and the first part of August, they needed a break from that moisture to get out in the fields. And then as that moisture subsided later in the growing season, it was some of those later-planted crops, like the soybeans and the cotton, and in some areas, peanuts, they started to feel some of that dry stress. But as we got closer to the wintertime, it was those winter crops that were starting to feel the effects. Luckily, we did have enough rain in late October, parts of November, even early December, that most farmers were able to get those winter crops planted. But now we’re hearing that those crops are not doing very well. We’re hearing about stunting for some of the cereal crops, especially up along the Virginia border. We’re hearing that some of the small grains in southeastern North Carolina are really not doing well, and those water levels in the soil are getting lower and lower. So, for agriculture, it’s not time to panic right now. We’re still a couple months away from the start of this next growing season, but certainly they would like to see some moisture sooner rather than later to help these winter crops along.”
Now around Thanksgiving, we did our winter outlook and just wanted to kind of project how the winter is going to look as far as temperature and precipitation goes. Where do we stand on that outlook? Are we kind of in line with what we talked about, or are we seeing a little variation?
“Yeah, the big takeaway from the winter outlook this year was we did expect drier-than-normal conditions across the Carolinas and really across the southeastern U.S. That’s what we usually see in this La Niña pattern that we’ve been in so far this season. And again, it’s been very dry going back to November. We also thought that the best chance for some cooler weather would come in the first half of winter. We’re still in that first half of climatological winter, and the forecast is showing some better chances of cool weather early next week. So, I’d say that has also been pretty much spot-on. Certainly, we’ve had a mixture of temperatures. We had some very warm conditions, especially over Christmas. And then looking ahead, the second half of January seems like it’s going to follow in that same pattern. We will probably have some cooler spells, and we will probably have some warmer spells. We will be riding that roller coaster just like we’ve been on over the last few weeks.”
All right, well, let’s take a look at the forecast. I know some people in Charlotte would like to know how they need to dress on Saturday. So, what’s the forecast this weekend looking like?
“Well, for starters, we’re going to be very warm this afternoon. High temperatures will be well up into the 70s. That’s continuing this warming trend that we’ve been on over the last couple days. There’s a warm front that’s moving in from the south today, not a great chance of any rain along that front, but again, it will push our temperatures up a few degrees higher than they were yesterday. And like you said, for Saturday, a big playoff football game going on in Charlotte, the big weather feature that we’ll be watching all weekend is a cold front that will be moving in from the west. It looks like it may get hung up over the mountains late Friday night through the day on Saturday. So those rain chances will mainly be in our mountain areas on Saturday, but by Saturday afternoon and Saturday evening, the rain chances will start to move a little bit further to the east, across the Piedmont. So, say for the folks at the playoff game, they will definitely have some warm weather, probably upper 70s, potentially near record highs in parts of the state, but they could see a sprinkle or two, especially later on in the afternoon. That rain will continue to move its way east on Saturday night. Any lingering showers will reach the coastline early Sunday morning, and it looks like in totals, those mountain areas may see a couple inches of rain from this event this weekend. That will be very welcome because, again, the southern mountains have been one of our driest spots here over the last couple weeks. Those totals will decrease from west to east. It looks like the Piedmont may see half an inch to an inch. Coastal areas may see only a quarter to half an inch. So not going to be a drought-buster event in those areas, but at least it’ll be a little bit more rain than we’ve had in the last couple of weeks. And then the other story will be the cool down that we’ll see, especially late Sunday into Monday. We’ll go from highs in the 50s and 60s on Sunday down to the 40s on Monday. So definitely it will feel like winter again after a week or so of that spring like weather. Looks like those temperatures will start to bounce back, at least back into the 50s, the middle of next week.”