Drought free and NC and SC can it be true? Well, we find out from Corey Davis, Assistant State Climatologist for North Carolina. And boy, that’s been a long time coming, but I understand actually no drought on the Drought Monitor for either of the Carolinas now.
“That’s right, Mike, and this is a milestone that we’ve been waiting on for several weeks and even months now, this drought has been with us all winter, all spring. We’re finally getting rid of it here early in the summer. We’ve talked in recent weeks about the improvements that we’ve seen across most of the Carolinas. It has been a very wet start to June, and it was also a wet may in most areas, so there were still just a few lingering dry spots, especially right along the coastline. Those areas got some really good rain over the past week. At the coast in South Carolina, places like Charleston had over two inches. There was a widespread two to four inches across a good chunk of eastern North Carolina, some of the wettest spots in the northeastern corner of the state saw five to six inches. You know, Mike, we talk a lot about that northeastern corner areas like Elizabeth City that just seemed to miss out on a lot of the rain, like they’re perpetually in drought. Well, those areas certainly got their fill. Last week, five and three quarters inches of rain up in Elizabeth City, the Greenville area had almost six inches on Sunday and Monday this week. So for that last lingering little bit of drought, there, it was put out with a fire hose of moisture here.”
As you said, we’ve been waiting for this for quite a while, and obviously everybody remembers that flash drought we had last year. What kind of an impact did this year’s drought have?
“You know, this was a really interesting drought, because it did not hit at the typical time of year we would expect, especially right now, in the summer like that one last June did. Instead, this drought came on last October. This was after the end of the growing season, so it was really not much of a problem for farmers in some areas, they couldn’t get their winter crop started quite on time. In a few areas, were a little bit slow for planting this spring, before that rain arrived over the last couple months, this was also not a drought that caused really any water supply problems during the cool season, over the fall and winter, we don’t have as much demand and we don’t have as much evaporation, so that never really caused those lake levels to diminish to the point of needing restrictions, and with the rain we’ve had in recent weeks, that has got those lakes and reservoirs across the Carolinas in really good shape. Instead, the biggest impact from this drought was a more pronounced spring wildfire season. It was not only because of that drought where we had very dry conditions across the landscape, but we also had some pretty cooperative weather conditions, meaning some dry air masses that moved in some gusty winds that helped those fires to start and spread. And the big X factor with this drought was that damage from Hurricane Helene out across the western part of the Carolinas. Not only did that add to the fuel loading lots of dead debris from those fallen trees across the landscape, but also it just made getting into some of those areas really difficult. Some of the fires we had back in March across places like Polk County and then the Big Table Rock fire down in northeastern South Carolina, all of those areas were struggling with getting rid of that storm debris, so unfortunately, that’s an issue we’re going to be dealing with for years to come. Those downed trees are not going anywhere, and they will continue to pronounce our fire seasons here over the next few years.”
Now, this wasn’t the time of year that we normally see drought. That does mean we couldn’t see it again pop up later on, right?
“That’s right. And looking at the current weather pattern, we have been wet, but we also are going into a pretty hot and dry week. If that were to stretch out a little bit longer, then you could definitely see some pockets of the Carolinas that would start slipping back into drought, or at least see some of those drought-like impacts. You know, anytime your grass starts turning brown, anytime the plants in your garden start wilting, that’s typically a sign of drought stress. So we’re not going to rule out the chance of getting back into drought the summer or even before the end of the year, but for now, it is definitely relief to have that long running drought, finally, in our rearview mirror.”
Hopefully I’m not jinxing anything by even bringing it up. So we’re going to move on quickly. You mentioned the heat, of course, man, it’s been a hot a hot week in the Carolinas and you’re even suffering from that, I understand.
“That’s right, Mike, it always picks the worst time to happen, but the air conditioning has gone out at the house here, at least in the upstairs, it’s still working downstairs, so trying to camp out there as much as I can. But you’re right. We have gotten a preview of that summer heat earlier this week, several days up into the low 90s, and we have more where that came from. We are getting a small break from the heat today. There was a weak cold front that moved through yesterday. It did bring some showers and storms across the Carolinas, and it’s knocking those high temperatures back today, only into the upper 80s, still pretty close to normal for this time of the year. But as we head into the weekend, we’ll have high pressure building in across the southeast that will raise our temperatures back into the 90s, upper 90s, expected by Monday. Some areas on Monday and Tuesday could even be close to 100 degrees. So certainly, the hottest weather that we’ve seen so far this year, and really going a step beyond that sort of typical level of summer heat in the Carolinas.”
Of course, we’re in hurricane season. And I was surprised. Yesterday morning, I saw a story about hurricane Eric making landfall on Mexico, and I said, “Wait a minute! Where did we get up to the E’s already?” I hadn’t even heard about any activity, but there’s a reason for that. Isn’t there.
“That’s right. This is in the eastern Pacific basin, not in the Atlantic. This is a region where sea surface temperatures usually run a little bit warmer, especially early in the season. Their hurricane season actually starts in May instead of in June. So they’ve had a few weeks of a head start for these storms to form, but they have still had a flurry of activity there over the last few weeks, again, already up to their fifth named storm. And Eric was a really unusual one for a couple reasons. First off, just how rapidly it strengthened. It went from a just a tropical storm all the way to a category four hurricane in 24 hours. Wow. So similar strengthening to what we saw from Helene in the Gulf last year. But also, if you look at where Eric is located. It made landfall unusually Far East and unusually far south, actually, south of Mexico City. So for those eastern Pacific storms that tend to track out closer to Hawaii, this was a storm that stayed a lot closer to land there along the Mexican coast.”
Still no activity in the Atlantic, yet, right?
“That’s right, still calm on the Atlantic now the National Hurricane Center is not tracking any systems that they expect to develop over the next seven days. Some of the forecasts looking out say a couple weeks are starting to pick up, maybe some systems that we could watch for, but again, nothing right now that is an immediate threat in the Atlantic basin.”
But with that in mind, what’s our forecast look like here in the Carolinas?
“Yeah, we mentioned that we’re going to break from the heat today, but it will be back on this weekend, and especially early next week. Again, those highs getting into the mid-90s and even upper 90s. It looks like at least through the middle of next week, we’ll keep those 90-degree temperatures around with that high pressure overhead, and that high pressure will also suppress any shower and thunderstorm activities so it looks like it will be sunny and it will be dry and it will be hot for most of the next seven days.”