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Late 1998 Drought
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| By December 1998 it became clear that there was a major drought
gripping the Eastern United States. In addition, record breaking warmth
spread over the same area during the pre-holiday season 1998. (Report on
that coming soon).
The drought had made it into the mainstream news as the mid-atlantic states struggled to get a small percentage of their normal precipitation during the summer and fall. CASI Members from up and down the coast filed reports describing the situation in their area. Those reports, along with specific numbers on rainfall deficits and news articles, follow. CASI Member Reports | News Articles | NWS Reports | Stats/Numbers CASI Member Reports 1. Jesse Ferrell (State College, PA) Here in Central PA it has indeed been extremely dry. I can't even remember the last time that it rained. A drought was recently declared in all PA counties, and there is a ban on smoking while hunting, as well as other fire-producing conduct. See below the rainfall data (bold red Max/Min lines near Zero) from the CASI1weatherstation . Because I do not currently have access to the full month of October I have not included CASI1 in the table below, which is the official results from the downtown station along with normals for them. Over half of the October rain total fell on two days. See also the pictures below of a creek near my house. In the last year that I have lived here, this has been a creek that has always flowed, 3-12" deep, 4-10 feet wide. I never would have though that it could completely cease to exist but that is what has happened as of 12/15/98. Click on the small picture for a full-size version
Rainfall at
CASI HQ for period of record. State College PA. Dec. 7 Not Complete. |
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2. Tom Myers (Rockwell, NC) Here is Rockwell, NC in the Central part of the state I have recorded only 32.08" of rain for the entire year. A normal year would expect to bring 45.70". So, figuring that we get our normal rain for December (3.55") and right now average for this month doesn't look promising at all; we'll end the year 10-11" below normal which would be almost 1/4 of our normal rainfall. Below is a breakdown on rainfall for 1998 here in Rockwell: Month Normal Actual Monthly+/- May 4.06" 1.41" -2.65" June 4.21" 1.40" -2.81" July 4.67" 0.79" -3.88" Aug 3.82" 2.73" -1.09" Sept 3.58" 4.04" +0.46" Oct 3.80" 1.02" -2.78" Nov 3.17" 1.99" -1.21" Dec 3.52" 0.00" -3.52" 3. Greg Drollinger (Watsontown, PA) Total precipitation from June 1 - December 4, 1998: 16.96" Days that had more than 0.25" add up to: June - 4 days July - 5 days August - 5 days September - 3 days October - 5 days November - 2 days Most of those were convective rains which fell quickly and did not soak the ground. 4. Michael Pitt (Macclenny, FL) Rain October 98 - Normal: 1.86" ; Actual: 1.30" Rain November 98 - Normal: 2.38" ; Actual :0.59" 5. Barry Hile (Chambersburg, PA) Franklin County: These are the precipitation totals for the months listed below. Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec 3.80 1.55 1.97 .66 none The longest dry stretch was Oct 10-Nov 9th with only .02 of precip in this period on Oct 28. The second longest stretch was from Aug 18-8 Sep which gave no rainfall. 6. Sharon Kimbleton (Lanham, MD) Sharon reports that the drought is worse than the one in 1988 and sends the Washington Post articles below.7. Mid-Atlantic Weather Station (Baltimore, MD) Drought Stats (BWI): Month Normal Actual Rainy Days July 3.69" 1.42" 4 Aug 3.92" 0.91" 3 Sept 3.41" 1.27" 6 Oct 2.98" 1.06" 7 Nov 3.32" 1.13" 5 Total: 17.32" 5.79" 25/150 7. Amy Avers (Greensboro NC) Greensboro, NC is in the midst of a drought also. We are currently at Stage 3 and were about to go to Stage 4, but received around 2" of rain over the weekend. Now government officials are discussing simply strengthening Stage 3. For details, please see the following site: http://www.greensboro.com/water/ 7. Steve Marks (Greensboro NC) I have a rain gauge at my home, which is located less than 1 mile from Lake Brandt (at the Greenway crossover). Here are the figures from both my rain gauge and the official gauge at the Piedmont Triad International Airport. These are the rain totals through 7:00AM Monday morning, December 14, 1998 and the monthly totals: Date Marks PTIA Dec 11-13 2.51 inches 2.10 inches Monthly Total 3.60 inches 3.01 inches The official reports put us 5.37 inches above normal for the year and 1.62 inches above normal for the month. However, from the period beginning September 1, we are still 3.86 inches below normal. Long range outlooks still forecast below normal precipitation through the end of March, but in the short term, some precipitation is possible within the next 10 days." = Steve Marks, Assistant Coordinator Greensboro-Guilford Co. Emergency Management News Articles
NWS/Govmt. Statements
Statistics/Numbers Percentages of Monthly Precip below 70% for selected Stations
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© 1998 Central Atlantic Storm Investigators |
