Wet August for most of North Carolina thanks to Debby’s rainfall, while peak temperature in the last week of the month. That ended a summer roller coaster with all the extremes.
Debby Watered, But Dry in the West
Our August rainfall is dominated by Tropical Storm Debbycontributions, alone, made for a wetter-than-normal month. The National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) reports preliminary statewide rainfall averages of 6.84 inchesis ranked as Wet August 23 since 1895.
The month began with scattered rains along the cold front on August 3, with total local heavy up to 2.96 inches AshevilleBut for eastern areas, it’s just an appetizer before heavy rains hit next week.
Hurricane Debby moved slowly along the coast from August 6 to 9, dropping more than 8 inches of rain in far southeastern North Carolina and widespread totals of at least 4 inches in the Piedmont and central coastal plains.
The extreme amount of rain and the length of time it lasted meant water levels remained high for a long time, even after the storm had passed. The Lumber River at Lumberton experienced two full weeks at least at the minor flood stage and nearly a week at the major flood stage. The flood crest of 21.48 feet on August 12 was the third highest flood crest on record at that location, behind only the flood crests from Florence and Matthew.
Fortunately for the areas devastated by the storm, Debby was followed by several weeks of drier weather. That gave rivers time to recover and reservoirs time to slowly drain their reserves. After Debby, Lake Jordan 13.5 feet above the guidance curve, but ended the month just a foot away from that target.
August ends with a more active weather pattern over Labor Day weekend with several inches of rain falling from near-stationary showers and thunderstorms. front cold rear door move from northeast to Friday, August 30 produced 1.74 inches of rain in Raleigh – ending a 16-day dry spell there – and 2.62 inches at our ECONet station in Durham.
In the wettest areas last month like WilmingtonDebby’s 10.70 inches easily surpassed the monthly average of 8.16 inches. Wilmington ended with 14.66 inches of rain, the second wettest August on record, behind only 18.83 inches in Ernesto-soaked 2006.
Other notable wet areas in eastern North Carolina include New Bernwith 13.04 inches and was the 3rd wettest August on record, and Fayettevillewith 9.94 inches of rain and was the 8th wettest August since 1910.
Parts of the northwestern Piedmont, which were in moderate drought in August, also benefited from Debby and other rains in a wet August. That included the 11th wettest August for Greensboro2nd wettest Reidsvilleand the wettest on record in Danbury with 10.88 inches last month.
While areas further east sometimes experience excessive humidity, the mountains are dry due to Typhoon Debby and there is very little rain later in the month, so August there is dry, especially in the south. Cullowhee only 0.65 inches of rain were recorded for the entire month in the second driest August on record, and Franklin had 0.47 inches of rain and was the driest August in 87 years of observation.
The drought in the west developed into Moderate Drought (D1) on the US Drought Monitor at the end of the month. The main impacts so far are on surface water levels, including low flow along the Pigeon River and the Little Tennessee River. That prompted the towns of Canton and Clyde in Haywood County to request Voluntary water conservation because their supplies from the Pigeon River were affected.
A Taste of Fall Before Summer Returns
Cool, cloudy weather in early August was offset by a warm end to the month that brought our average temperatures close to normal. The NCEI recorded a preliminary statewide average of 76.0°F and ours August 59th Warmth over the past 130 years.
The first significant cool down of the month occurred when Debby passed through, as cloudy and rainy days kept our high temperatures in the low to mid 80s. Our temperatures dropped again on August 20 when path of cold front bringing colder air masses from the northwest.
August 21, high temperature never quite got out of the 70s in most of the state. The next morning brought the first taste of fall for the season, with Low temperatures reach mid 50s for the first time since early June. The northern mountains even dropped to the 40s, with Boone reached 47°F about a week earlier than the average temperature of that cool first morning.
But as a reminder that we’re still in summer, Mother Nature turned up the heat during the final week of the month, with highs reaching 90 degrees in most areas on August 29.
Even locations in the west feel the heat, including Hot spring peaked at 96°F. So far in 2024, there have been seven days with a maximum temperature of at least 95°F, the highest so far in a year since 2016.
Along with extreme temperatures reaching 99°F at Charlotte Airports, some areas of the Charlotte metropolitan area faced high ozone levels throughout the week.
The formation of ground-level ozone requires pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds to react with sunlight, and the last week of August saw a prolonged period of hot weather, along with stagnant air masses in which these precursor pollutants accumulated from local industrial sources and wildfire smoke from as far away as central Canada.
On August 27, the Air Quality Department’s monitor at University Meadows in northeastern Mecklenburg County had Daily Ozone Air Quality Index out of 156, which was in the Code Red or Unhealthy range. That was the highest ozone AQI level recorded at that location since 2016 and the highest for that monitor since June 29, 2012at its former location near the Cabarrus County border.
An Extreme Summer
The end of August means the end of the climatic summer, and it’s hard to remember a summer with as much change and volatility as this one.
June saw the onset of an extreme heat wave early in the season, combined with a dry spell lasting more than two weeks, which led to the rapid development and deterioration of drought conditions across the state. The latest monthly rankings from the NCEI show that this is our state Second driest June recorded.
July The season began with higher temperatures that sent Raleigh-Durham Airport sensors hitting record levels. Rain then returned farther east, with monthly totals exceeding 12 inches in some parts of the Coastal Plain.
In August, Hurricane Debby interrupted the wet late summer weather pattern, while drought emerged farther west in areas not affected by the storm.
The preliminary seasonal charts don’t convey all those abrupt changes over time, but they tell the story of a hot summer in which extreme rainfall overcame extreme drought. According to the NCEI, this is 18-warmest And Wet Summer 42 Recorded in North Carolina since 1895.
Locally, the three months of June to August ranked as the third warmest summer for Raleigh4th warm in Asheville And Sawn timberand the 9th warmest Charlotte.
By the end of August, Raleigh recorded 64 days with high temperatures of 90°F or above – the sixth most on record here so far this year – and Fayetteville There have been 63 such days, including the highest temperature of 101°F on July 5.
Although the season started off dry, the summer was generally wet in most parts of the state, including the third wettest summer on record. New Bern9th wettest City of Elizabethand is the 15th wettest place Greensboro.
However, the weather in many mountainous areas was drier than normal and there was hardly any heavy rain throughout the season. Waynesville had the third driest summer on record, while it was the second driest summer in the past 33 years. Candlelighter and the driest summer on record Franklin only 5.03 inches – just 36% of normal rainfall.
that local driest summer on record described as one of many unusual phenomena of the past season. We started with extreme heat and extreme drought in June, then received heavy rainfall in July and early August, and we ended the season with higher temperatures and Code Red ozone levels in late August.
From dry to wet, from drought to tropical storms, and from hot to unhealthy air quality, this has been an extremely harsh summer for North Carolina.
