Drought disappears in August, despite tropical rain

Bound by heatAugust wraps up a warm statewide summer, while scattered showers ended our ongoing drought. We also look to the tropics and review a rare August storm.

A warm summer is over

The weather that starts hot and ends through August is balanced by cooler mid-month weather, but overall still a warmer-than-usual month. The National Center for Environmental Information (NCEI) reported the statewide preliminary average temperature last month as 76.6°Franked as ours 45th-August warmest since 1895.

Under the control of high pressure focused on Carolinasthe beginning of August saw the continuation of hot and humid dog day weather from july. High temperature up to the 90s above August 9 and 10.

Ours ECONet Station in Jockey’s Ridge National Park reached 97.5°F on August 9, which is the warmest temperature on record there since the station was installed earlier this year, and 10 degrees above normal for the northern Outer region Banks.

Then reduce the heat to August 12, like a cold front pair moving in from the northwest packed a necessary amount of rain once or twice and cooler, less humid air.

In the morning of August 14temperatures in some areas bottomed out in the 50s, including as low as 59°F in Jacksonville. It was the first night in the 50s there since June 22. In the mountains, Sparta and Mount Mitchell both have temperatures as low as 49°F above August 13 – the first feeling of autumn after a wet summer, even in our elevated locations.

The month ends with the return of High pressure over the Southeast and good 90s temperatures across North Carolina, reminding us that summer isn’t over yet.

By the end of August, Raleigh recorded 69 days this year with temperatures reaching at least 90°F. That’s the second-most of all time, only after 2010, there are 75 such days at this time of year.

Back in 2010, we went through another 16 90-degree days in September, so it will be a challenge for the capital city to compete for the annual record outright. In any case, it’s been an exceptionally warm summer in Raleigh – in fact, the 3rd warmest on record – with little break from the heat.

In other places, Wilmington associated with the 4th warmest summer and Charlotte had the 10th warmest summer of all time, the warmest there since 2016.

Statewide, with the strength of three consecutive months warmer than usual, The record is the 15th warmest summer, according to preliminary data from NCEI. Each of our past eight summers, and 16 of the past 18, have been warmer than the 20th-century average.

Showers bring drought relief

Statewide, a mixture of dry and wet conditions averaged for a statewide preliminary mean precipitation is 4.43 inches and ours 47th-August driest over the past 128 years, according to the NCEI.

There is very little rain occurring on a large scale during the month. Instead, showers and thunderstorms are responsible for most of our rainfall, leaving some areas wet while others missed.

Areas of Piedmont are remarkably dry, with only 0.91 inches of rainfall all month in Raleighranked as tied to the 2nd driest August since 1887. Monroe measured only 2.33 inches all month for the driest August 20 in 127 years.

Among the wetter regions, Hickory picked up 3.45 inches of rain from slow-moving storms on the afternoon of August 6 and ended the month 3.3 inches above normal, with August’s ninth wettest in 73 years.

In the East, Plymouth had a total of 4.79 inches in the front segments on August 11 and 12, accounting for more than half of its monthly total of 8.90 inches.

That event also brought showers that were set across the Central Coast Delta. Weekly total more than 4 inches in Goldsboro and 2.8 inches at Fort Bragg enough to bring these areas out of drought for the first time since mid-March.

Since the last patch of Moderate Drought (D1) finally disappeared on the map August 23, we ended up with 43 consecutive weeks of drought present in North Carolina. That ranks as our fifth-longest streak since the US Drought Monitoring Service began officially monitoring conditions in 2000.

Looking back, what stood out about this drought? In short: it’s stubborn but generally lacks seriousness.

Drought was present in all 4 seasons in the past year. It first appeared during our dry fall before improving – though not completely gone – in winter. Spring sees a expanding throughout the coastal plainand then the summer showers finally eroded it.

One of its main effects is November is the fire season northwest of Piedmont, including the 1,000-acre Grindstone Flame on Pilot Mountain. Due to the dry conditions occurring this spring, the corn crop is also affected and may not fully recover this growing season. Just last week, 37% of corn was rating in poor or very poor conditionand extension workers in Union County say corn yields this year could be as little as half of normal.

However, we have never seen widespread crop damage – most cotton, soybeans and tobacco are in good shape – or disruption to water supply as widespread as in some droughts. long drought in the past.

That largely comes down to two factors. First, we’ve never gotten worse than Severe Drought, or D2 on the US Drought Watchdog. drought scale four types. In all four of our longer-lived droughts since 2000, parts of the state classified as Extreme (D3) or Special (D4), tend to have worse impacts more and longer.

Second, the drought is mainly limited to the Sandhills and the Coastal Plain. Even at it widest range in December last yearThe southern range avoids any drought classification, and rainfall during winter and spring is generally sufficient to keep Piedmont on the edge of drought and its effects.

We certainly cannot rule out a re-emergence of drought if some dry spots this fall, and Abnormally Dry (D0) areas remain there. the rain Summer and flow was below normal. The good news, however, is that summer has brought overall improvements – not recessions – to our statewide drought.

Calm before the storm?

The disappearance of the drought is a bit of a surprise given that we didn’t have any rain contributions from last month’s tropical storms. The recent absence of activity in the Atlantic has surprised even experts predicting a major hurricane season this year.

“They were completely confused,” said Dr. Carl Schreck, a tropical climate expert at the North Carolina Institute of Climate Research in Asheville. “By all accounts, August Candlestick has been active. “

There were – and still are – good reasons for the expectation of an eventful season. First, sea surface temperatures across the Atlantic have been warmer than usual this summer, including in the main growth region from the coast of Africa to the Caribbean and in the Gulf Stream along the east coast of we.

La Niña conditions remain, and the weaker upper westerly winds associated with those events tend to reduce wind shear over the Atlantic and make hurricanes more likely to form. That’s just part of a large-scale favorable wind pattern in the basin.

“Tropical winds are always coming in, blowing up and out,” says Schreck. “The air is generally rising over the Atlantic and Africa, and those areas are already at least a little wetter than usual.”

While a lot of dust brought in from the Sahara desert has limited potential activity in July, August with generally more favorable environmental conditions – but still no tropical storms. The missing key ingredient is vertical instabilitycan initiate thunderstorm clusters that often develop into tropical systems.

As a result, this is only the third day in August since 1950 that there have been no named storms in the Atlantic, joining 1961 and 1997. And before the development of Tropical Cyclone Danielle on September 1, we were 60 days in a row since the last named storm – Tropical Storm Colin, for a short while. surround our shores in early July.

That’s the longest gap between named storms in hurricane season since 1999. Of course, that year offers a memorable lesson for why we shouldn’t let our guard down, though this season still no activity.

Over a two-week period in September 1999, two hurricanes – the first Dennisafterward Floyd – once drenched eastern North Carolina, and their consequences were historic inland and freshwater flooding along TarNeuse River and Cape Fear.

While that’s no guarantee we’ll have similar storms this year, it’s a reminder that an impactful – and even above-average – hurricane season is still present. This can happen as we are seeing more disturbances across the Atlantic.

The typical peak of hurricane season might be mid-September, but activity is likely to begin only that time this year. Therefore prepare and stay alert, because the tropics are finally warming up.