It’s been a little bit of Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, with the weather patterns here. Over the last week, some areas have seen noticeable rain. Other areas have been wishing for it. We’ve got state decision climatologist Corey Davis here. Corey, like I said, we have seen some areas in the western part of the state get some sustainable rain, but we also have not seen any rain over in the east. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
“Yeah, the best way I can describe this is like when you were a kid at home having to do your homework and all your friends are outside playing around the neighborhood. That’s how folks in the Raleigh area and further east felt last weekend. We were watching the western part of the Carolinas get dumped on with a ton of rainfall, all while we were seeing basically nothing at all. A really interesting system that we had last weekend — it was a cold front that moved in from the west, basically stalled out over the western part of the state. So those areas saw 2-4 inches of rain. Some of the higher totals right along the North and South Carolina border were more than six inches over a couple days last Friday and Saturday. But as that front slowly moved off to the east, that moisture just dissipated, and there was basically no rain left once it made it to the Raleigh area and then out toward the coastline. So that’s why we saw such a big difference in those rainfall totals — even a couple inches in the Asheville area, about an inch and a half in the Triad, but less than a tenth of an inch in Raleigh. And then as we headed down toward places like Fayetteville, no measurable rain at all over this past week. So again, some big differences just over one weekend.”
Now, what impact has that had on the Drought Monitor? I know a lot of areas have been in more severe drought. Has that eased it up a little bit?
“Yeah, there was some good news and bad news this week. The good news was, again, in the western part of the state — the southern mountains in North Carolina and some of the mountain areas in South Carolina — had just gone into that severe drought category last week. They had been extremely dry over the last couple months, really going back to the beginning of November. So this was their first significant rain event in several months. We did see some improvements to the severe drought, now back to just moderate drought in those western areas. But further east, where those places missed out on the rain, they are now going into severe drought — places like Goldsboro and Kinston. Worth noting that in both of those cities, the Neuse River has reached a record low level for this time of the year. Again, just speaking to how dry we’ve been and how little rain we’ve had since the beginning of 2026. We are looking at severe drought also in Raleigh, down toward the Charlotte area. So that severe drought is pretty widespread across most of North Carolina and also some of the upstate areas in South Carolina at this point.”
All right. Now, I know we were talking about before we went on — some ag reports have recently come out. Give us a little information about that and what exactly, based on these reports, the farmers are worrying about.
“Every week in North Carolina, for our drought calls on Tuesday, we get reports from county extension agents all across the state, and these really give us the pulse of the farmers — what their concerns are right now and also going forward. What we’re hearing, especially in some of those western areas, is some of these places got some rain, but some just missed out. They said their pastures are still showing some stress — just not as much rain as they would have wanted over the last couple months. And the same goes for some of those winter crops, like the cereal grains in some areas. Those were planted later in the first place because we were so dry last fall, but just haven’t had the moisture that they really needed over these last couple months to get to where they should be at this point in the season. But I think the most interesting report came out of Robeson County in the Lumberton area this week. They said that because they’re not getting that rainfall, the topsoil moisture is not in great shape, but they’re really more worried about the subsoil moisture. So this is digging down several inches to a foot or so. That’s really the big worry going into the spring and the growing season. If we don’t get some more rain between now and then, there will just not be a lot of moisture left for that springtime planting. So the farmers are definitely watching the topsoil closely, but maybe watching that subsoil even more closely, because that will tell them a lot about how ready they’ll be to plant once we get into March and April.”
That’s definitely a big worry. You know, we want to get some moisture in here — some precipitation. But it just seems like yesterday it was New Year’s Day, and now we’re already halfway through the month of January. Let’s take a look back real quickly. Let’s look at the overall weather report so far for the first 15 days of the month.
“Yeah, not surprisingly, not a lot of rainfall, especially across eastern North and South Carolina. So far in January, Raleigh has officially had two-hundredths of an inch of rain. So far this month, we just talked about Lumberton and how dry it’s been. Down there, they are at seven-hundredths of an inch. And then down in Columbia, South Carolina, they’re at two-tenths of an inch. So they seem like a wetter spot comparatively, but again, very dry across most of the Carolinas. Finally, once we get further west to places like Asheville, they’re in almost three inches so far this month. That’s some of the few areas that are actually right on track for where they should be in terms of precipitation. The other thing we can check so far this month is the temperatures, and it has been a very warm start to January. Of course, folks remember how warm we were to end 2025, especially on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but we’ve kept those mostly above-normal temperatures for the first couple weeks of this month. Places like Charlotte are on track for one of their top 10 warmest January’s on record. But, Kyle, we don’t expect that will last. We’ve already felt some cold air over the last couple days, and there is more where that came from as we head into next week.”
Let’s talk about the weekend forecast. We don’t have any football games to go out to here in the Carolinas, but what does the weekend have in store? Possibly some winter weather?
“Yeah, if we rewind a couple days, we got our first at least wintry blast of the year. We had an arctic cold front move through back on Wednesday night into Thursday that kept our high temperatures in the upper 30s to low 40s, and most areas will warm up slightly today. It looks like maybe mid- to upper 40s, and then tomorrow will be by far the warmest day of the week. We may even crack the 60-degree mark — so a little bit above normal for this time of the year. But that next arctic cold front will be moving in by Saturday night and Sunday, and as you said, that is when we stand a chance of seeing maybe something frozen — at least something falling from the sky. For once, it looks like, especially further east across the coastal plain in North Carolina, we may see some rain, possibly some snow, probably a mix in most areas. A little too early right now to talk about accumulations, but Sunday is just looking like a pretty nasty day overall. Temperatures only in the 40s, with that rain and/or snow falling from the sky. And then as we head into the first part of next week, cold air will be the big story. It looks like we’ll have lows down in the teens on Sunday night and Monday night, highs only making it up to around 40 degrees for the first few days of next week. So even though we started January warm, like we said, that warmth is not going to stick around for long. We are headed back into the freezer as we come through the middle of the month.”