Tropical Storm Chantal really left an impact on parts of central North Carolina last week. Corey Davis from the state climate office of North Carolina Joining me now, and we really saw I know most of the attention nationally has been on Texas, and I don’t want to downplay that at all, because that has been a horrendous situation there, but we had a small taste of that in Central North Carolina last week. Tell us about that.
“Yeah, Mike, the damage, the flooding, the rainfall from Chantal is even more impressive when you consider the type of system that it was. This was not a land falling hurricane. This was not even that strong of a tropical storm, and it was only a tropical depression when it crossed central North Carolina last Sunday. But because it had sat to our south for several days as it developed, it picked up so much moisture off the Atlantic and just took the perfect inland track to channel that moisture up across central North Carolina, some of the rainfall totals there in parts of Alamance, Orange counties were more than 10 inches back on Sunday. Most of that rain fell over a period of only about 12 hours. And in some places like Chapel Hill, they were seeing rain rates of two and a half to three inches per hour during the height of that storm on Sunday. So again, so impressive to look at what that storm did, obviously the damage and the flooding as well, and then seeing some of those river levels, like along the Haw River that actually topped the crest from Hurricane Fran back in ’96, Mike, I know a lot of folks that have been around the Carolinas for a while will have very distinct memories of Fran and the damage it did that was considered just the end-all-be-all hurricane. It’s hard to imagine anything that would surpass what Fran did, and yet, here was a tropical depression that dropped even more rain and sent those river levels even higher.”
Yeah, that is impressive. And I distinctly remember Fran. I lost a pecan tree in my front yard. Landed right at my front door. And that was there was a lot of rain leading up to Fran, too, as I recall, that really had saturated a lot of the ground. But this one really left its mark. You know, along as you mentioned the Haw River. Let’s talk about some of those river levels right now. What are we seeing post Chantal and what are we likely to still see from that?
“Well, Mike, you said it, it has been a very wet pattern recently, even going back to the end of May and early June. So those rivers had not really dropped over the last couple of months, they had stayed pretty full. So the round of rain that we got on Sunday from Chantal that sent those rivers on a first spike in some areas, like along the hall river, we saw major flood stage reach. And again, that was a record river levels in some cases. But the old saying goes, When it rains, it pours, and we have seen even more rain this week, especially over the past couple afternoons and evenings. So that has made for a second rise in the river levels after the rain that we got. Back on Wednesday night, we saw the Haw River back into minor flood stage, and then further south areas along the lower cape, Fear River in the lumber River in moderate to minor flood stage. And it looks like after the rain that we got last night, we will have another third wave and a third rise in the river levels. So these areas that have been inundated over the past week just keep getting more rain and then even more rises in those rivers.”
And I understand there may be even more rain to come. We’ll take a look at the forecast here in just a moment. But I would imagine with the rain totals that we’ve had, we’re fairly drought free in the Carolinas still, right?
“We are still drought free, but there actually are a couple spots of abnormally dry conditions that have popped up right along the North South Carolina border. These are areas just south of Charlotte, in place like Lancaster and Chesterfield County, South Carolina, that just barely missed out on that rain from Chantal and also from the rain that we got back on Wednesday night. So these areas have been a little bit drier over the past couple weeks now, with some of the rain that we got last night and that we’re expecting to see over the next couple days that could easily wipe out those rainfall deficits and take us back to a clear map for next week, but it just worth noting that we’ve really been dealing with opposites across the Piedmont here over the last week, areas further north and east have been dealing with the heavy rain and flooding, but areas further south and west really haven’t seen as much rain, so they are starting to see some of those dry impacts, and certainly the heat that we had back in late June, the first of July, that made it a little bit speedier for some of those dry weather impacts to creep back in.”
Not uncommon for this time of year, to see those spotty showers pop up. Let’s talk very quickly, since we’ve mentioned Chantal, any other activity in the Atlantic to speak of right now?
“Well, fortunately, the Atlantic is quiet right now, no activity expected over the next seven days. But this is a good chance to revisit where we are so far in the season. Of course, it’s only the middle of July, and we’re already up to our third named storm. The average date when that third named storms forms isn’t until August the third, so we’re almost a month ahead of schedule in terms of storm formation. So I would say those outlooks that we talked about a few months ago that we’re showing above normal activity this year, those have been spot on so far, and certainly we’ve got several months ahead of us, but we’re expecting to see more storms forming.”
Speaking of activity, what are we expecting over the next few days?
“Well, it had an active weather pattern here this week, mainly because of a low-pressure system up across the Mid Atlantic, states to our north, but that has been bringing in more moisture from the south as well, and that’s helped fuel some of those heavy rain showers over the past couple nights. We’ll have one more day today where we’re expecting some widespread shower activity, maybe not quite as widespread as what we’ve seen the last couple days, but still looks like a decent chance of showers and storms this afternoon. And then as we head into Saturday, those rain chances will back off just a little bit, but still expecting a decent chance of showers just about every day, and we’ll start to see pretty typical temperatures for this time of the year, mostly low 90s. Keep in mind, Mike, we’re only a couple weeks away from the climatological hottest part of the year. We had that back in late June, but it looks like we will have pretty seasonable weather here over the next week.”