Recent rainfall has eased the drought conditions in some spots, but many areas still need a lot more rain. Let's take a look at the latest drought monitor, how recent rain compares to normal, and what some of the rain totals are.
The majority of the rain since the start of August has been towards the Sandhills area. You can see that some of our highest rain totals are in Fayetteville, Raeford, and surrounding areas. Clayton was an isolated spot that got a higher rainfall total.
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Meanwhile, RDU, Oxford, and the observation site at Kerr Dam have only seen one to two inches of rain.
This translates with the percent of normal rainfall across central North Carolina. There are so many spots that are highlighted in that orange/brown color indicating well-below normal rainfall. There are just a few isolated spots that show up in blue or green where rain is above normal.
As we have talked about frequently recently, Kerr Lake's reservoir level continues to fall, and we are now over ten feet below full pool of 300 feet. When you compare the lake level to last year, we are over eight feet below that value.
This is likely why we continue to see severe and extreme drought conditions in our northern spots.
On the flip side, parts of the Sandhills were removed from the drought including Raeford and Fayetteville.
With a strengthening El Niño through the winter months, we are hoping for a transition to a wetter pattern to increase our rain totals across the area.