The latest drought monitor clearly highlights the lack of rain we have had since September of last year. Some of our northern spots are now under an exceptional drought. We had some scattered storms on Thursday, but will we have enough rain in our future to bring improvements to this drought? Let's look into the latest rainfall forecast over the next week, and we'll see what trends look like long term.
This the latest drought monitor, and it shows much of our northern spots still under extreme drought with our southern spots in a severe drought. Areas in northern Wake, Durham, Orange, southern Person, southern Granville, and far western portions of Franklin county have been upgraded to exceptional drought.
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Despite a good bit of rain in our southern spots allowing those areas to be dropped from the extreme drought, 12-14 inches of rain are still needed across almost our entire area in order to end our drought within a one month period. This gives a good indication that the drought will likely persist over the next few months. It's harder to get as much widespread, soaking rain during the summertime unless we have a tropical system; we typically just see scattered downpours.
Although any rain over the next week will likely be scattered across the region, we at least have seen increasing totals for parts of our northern spots. Raleigh is now forecast to receive about an inch of rain, while Fayetteville could up to the 0.75". The highest totals will likely be closer to the coast where 2+" are possible.
Looking long term over the next couple of weeks, more surges of moisture across much of the U.S. will bring a slightly above average chance of above normal precipitation. While this does not promise great improvements in our drought, at least there are some signs of at least a little improvement.
