Well, over the last week, we’ve had a couple instances of some weather systems coming through here, giving us some much-needed precipitation. We’ve got state Assistant Climatologist Corey Davis here. Corey, tell us a little bit about all these different systems that have impacted North Carolina and South Carolina.
“Yeah, Kyle, coming off a pretty dry November, we’ve had a pretty wet start to December. As you mentioned, three major weather systems over the past week and a half or so. If we rewind to last Tuesday, we can call that one the major moisture maker. This was an offshore low-pressure system, and it did pull in lots of moisture off the coast. Some of our eastern areas saw up to 2 inches of rain, and there was a pretty widespread half-inch or more of rain all across the Carolinas. So that was a very welcome rain event, the first solid, significant rain some areas had had since late October.
“We then go to last Friday. We might call this event the icing on the cake. There was not as much moisture with this system, at least outside of the coastal areas. It was just more of a cold rain for most of the Carolinas, but there was a little bit of snow and even a little bit of freezing rain mixed in, especially as we got farther north and west.
“And then finally, this past Monday, we had what we might call the surprise snow. Now, it certainly was cold enough for snow, and that was in the forecast, but we saw across the Virginia border into the northern coast of North Carolina some pretty solid snow totals — a dusting upward of 2 inches in some spots. So again, you add those three events together, and that makes for a pretty wet week across the Carolinas.”
So what did that do to the drought map across the Carolinas? Hopefully that improved some areas to get them out of abnormally dry conditions.
“We did see some improvements. Eastern South Carolina that, as you said, had been mostly in that abnormally dry category has been lifted back basically to near normal this week. That tells us that they’re doing pretty well in terms of the precipitation deficits over the last couple months, and really no major impacts to speak of at this point.
“I know in southeastern North Carolina, where we’ve had that moderate drought on the map for the last couple months, we have seen some improvements there as well. A lot of those areas, especially around Wilmington and up to Goldsboro, are now back to just abnormally dry. There still are some rainfall deficits — some areas are 4 to 5 inches below normal over the last three months — but again, the rain this week definitely helped.
“And then especially across parts of the Piedmont of North Carolina, we still have moderate drought on the map. The totals this past week were a little bit lower. The Raleigh area only saw around an inch in total, which is pretty much average for this time of year, no more than that. So because of that, we do still have that drought, but there have been some positive improvements. A lot of the stream levels have seen a nice boost. Also, those topsoil moisture conditions have really improved, and that should be a relief to the farmers who are finally trying to get some of that small grain started.”
Now, a couple weeks ago, right after Thanksgiving, we talked about our winter outlook — projecting what the winter is going to look like — and you said it’s going to be abnormally dry and a little warmer than normal. Do we want to go ahead and reassess the outlook? Because it’s been a little colder, and it’s been a little wetter?
“Yeah, that’s a great question, and you’re right. Right before Thanksgiving, we talked about the winter outlook. We said we were in this La Niña-type event that tends to favor warm and dry weather overall for a winter season. The key word there is overall. And we noted then we were not expecting it to be wall-to-wall warm and dry weather for all three months of the winter. And even then, we were looking at this window in early December as one of the better chances of seeing some colder air. So I would say the outlook is, for the most part, right on track. We’ve seen some of these breaks in the warmth and dryness so far, but it looks like in the longer run, especially as we cross the midpoint of December, we should shift into that warm and dry pattern overall.”
All right. And let’s look at the weekend coming up. Are we going to have any more wet weather to help improve the drought conditions, or is it going to be more dry conditions?
“Yeah, we’re coming off that really active pattern — some unsettled weather over the last week and week and a half — but we are in a much quieter pattern right now. We’ve seen partly cloudy skies over the last couple days. We will have a slight warmup this afternoon. Instead of being in the upper 40s, look for those highs in the low 50s, and we’ll be even warmer than that on Saturday. Look for some mid- to upper 50s, especially across eastern North and South Carolina.
“One thing we do not see in the forecast is a good chance of rain. It looks pretty dry over the next week, and the next big weather feature to watch for is a good shot of cold air that will come in by Monday. It looks like the high temperatures on Monday may be down around 40, and then we will warm up fairly quickly through the middle of next week. It looks like by next Thursday, we should be back above normal. And again, as we mentioned, that may be the start of several warm weeks to end December. Some of the longer-range forecasts are even showing out through Christmas being warmer than normal and, again, without a whole lot of precipitation moving through then.”
So you’re trying to say that there might not be a white Christmas in people’s future?
“Yeah, I think if you’re dreaming of a white Christmas, you may want to revise that dream. Maybe dream of a warm Christmas, because it certainly looks like that is more likely at this point.”