For the first time in a couple of days here in the Carolinas, we have seen blue skies and sun, which is normally what we’ve been seeing over the last six months. But this has been one of the wettest Julys on record, especially here in the Carolinas. We got State Assistant Climatologist Corey Davis to talk about it. Corey, let’s get into it. We had a whole lot of rain over the last seven days or so. So, let’s take a look at the totals across the Carolinas and how much of an impact that has had on the drought map.
“Yeah, Kyle, we joked before we started that it feels like we missed out on all the rain and storms this spring, so Mother Nature tried to fit them all into one week or one month here in July. It has been a very wet one. At the time we recorded last week, we were talking about that rain that had moved through parts of the central Piedmont in North Carolina. We ended up seeing more than 6 inches in some spots, and a lot of that fell in just one day between Wednesday night and Thursday. Places like High Point had their wettest single day since 1954, when Hurricane Hazel hit. Again, that was an unprecedented amount of rain that we saw in those spots.
And then by the time we got into Friday and Saturday, that moisture did finally make its way a little farther south and east, and it was well worth the wait. We know down in the southern Piedmont, especially in the Charlotte and Monroe area, they had been missing out on some of that rain in recent weeks. They had been slipping back toward severe and extreme drought, but they saw some really healthy totals, more than 4 inches in some areas down there, and some even higher amounts down at the coastline out in Hyde County. We saw 7 to 8 inches of rain around Lake Mattamuskeet and also some 5- or 6-inch totals elsewhere in eastern North Carolina. On the South Carolina side, they didn’t get quite as much. We did have some localized areas that picked up 2 to 2½ inches of rain, but farther south, like in Charleston, those totals were under 2 inches. So still a decent rain event there, but again, on the North Carolina side, that’s where we really benefited in terms of those rain amounts.”
I know a lot of people are looking at the drought maps and then seeing all this rain, and the first thing that’s probably coming to their mind is, well, we had 5 inches of rain, the drought’s over, everything is good. Talk to us a little bit more about why some of these areas are still in drought or possibly severe drought despite getting 4, 5 or 6 inches of rain over the last week.
“Yeah, we’re in an unusual spot right now because, in the short term, things are very wet, especially across North Carolina. I know folks have noticed their lawns have really sprung up and greened up. There’s probably still some standing water in places. Drought is the last thing you would think of just looking at the surface level. But we know that it has been dry for so many months in a row now that there are more entrenched impacts that are still slowly recovering.
A good example is at Falls Lake near Raleigh. It had been almost 6 feet below its normal level. It basically cut that deficit in half. Falls is now about 3 feet below normal. But again, it is still below normal, and it is still slowly rising in response to these more recent showers. We’re also seeing some groundwater and deeper soil moisture conditions all across the Carolinas that saw a small uptick after the rain last week, but we know we need more and more consistent rain events to really get those levels back to normal.
So, when we look at the drought map right now, we have seen some big improvements this week, including some of those wettest parts of the Piedmont. They’ve improved by two categories, going from extreme drought, or the D3 level, back to just moderate drought, or the D1 level. But you’re right, we do still have areas with severe and extreme drought, especially down along the coast. Again, that mainly reflects some of the long-term deficits that we haven’t overcome yet and some of those areas that missed out on the rain this past week.”
Now, what kind of impact has this last weeks’ worth of rain had on the crops and the farms around the Carolinas?
“I think, for the most part, the farmers are pretty happy with this event, but they know that they’re still not all the way back to where they need to be either. In places like Sampson County down in southeastern North Carolina, it sounds like they have had some big improvements, especially with the cotton and the soybeans. And we’ve talked in recent weeks about the tobacco crop, how it’s been a struggle to get the water needed to irrigate that. Well, now it sounds like some of the tobacco growers in Sampson County have too much water in their fields.
So, this has been one of those growing seasons where it’s hard to make the farmers happy. In other parts of North Carolina especially, we are hearing that, again, the rain was beneficial. The question is, is it too little, too late for some of those crops that were so dry to start the growing season, especially for that early-planted corn? Just missing out on the rain in May and June, it seems like it may not make the recovery that they would hope for. But some of the later-planted corn is doing better. Of course, that’s always a risk when you wait because that means the corn is going to be growing at what’s usually the hottest time of the year. But in this case, that meant it was also the wettest time of the year. So that was at least a good break for those corn growers.”
Well, it is the end of July, and let’s take a look at where we’re standing, totals-wise, for the month. It has literally, and we’ve said this a couple of times, been a roller coaster. We’ve had temperatures as high as 103 and as low as 73, and we’ve had days of no rain and days with 4 inches of rain. So, take a look through the numbers for temperatures and precipitation.
“Yeah, we’ll start with the rainfall because, especially after this rain we’ve had over the last week, we’ve got some areas that are pushing record-wet conditions for this month. I think one stat that’s just astounding is that in the Raleigh area, they’ve had more than 12 inches of rain so far in July. That’s more than if you put the first six months of this year together. So again, that just shows how dry we were, but also how wet we’ve been.
It looks like it’ll finish as the second-wettest July on record in Raleigh, only behind 1931. So certainly, the wettest July in the lifetime of anybody listening now. Other places that picked up on those higher rainfall totals last week, like Concord near Charlotte, are also tracking for one of their top-five wettest Julys on record.
Really interesting, though, if you go south of the border into South Carolina, they’re on the dry side for this month. Columbia has had less than 1½ inches of rain in total, and we’re also seeing places like Myrtle Beach that are almost 2 inches below normal for July. So again, it just goes to show that not everywhere got in on those wet conditions. Some areas are still seeing that prolonged dryness.
Then on the temperature side, we see the same difference north and south of the border. Down in South Carolina, they haven’t had as many of those cool, cloudy days. They’ve had more sunshine. It is generally running warmer than normal down there. Charleston is on track for its fourth-warmest July on record. Same story just up the coast in Wilmington.
But as we go a little farther north, the areas that had more rain last week will still finish with a warmer-than-normal July, but not near record territory. Raleigh, for instance, is tracking as its 15th-warmest July on record. So still a warm month. We remember those heat dome patterns early in the month, but certainly that rainy, cloudy weather here over the last week or two has helped bring those numbers down a little bit.”
Well, let’s take a look at the forecast. I know we probably are not going to get any more rain in July, but are we going to start August with rain in the forecast, or is it going to be another sunny, beautiful weekend?
“This feels like another one of those months where Mother Nature has its own calendar because we will see a pretty big weather change this weekend once we turn over to August.
To start with, we have seen those temperatures rebound this week. We will stay in the upper 80s to low 90s, pretty typical for this time of the year, and that’ll last through at least Saturday. Then, as we get into Sunday, especially later Sunday afternoon, that’s when we’ll see those rain chances increase again. There’s a cold front coming in from the west, and that will bring better chances of showers and storms, mainly Sunday night and during the day Monday.
It looks like this front may also be pretty slow-moving once it gets here, and we could see those better rain chances linger through the middle of next week as well. So certainly, it looks like August will be getting off to a little wetter start. Probably not the high totals like we saw back in the last week of July, but again, for the areas that are still dealing with severe and extreme drought conditions, this will be much-needed rain to try to help them recover as well.”