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Summer and Tropical Outlook: An ENSO Reversal and its Effects

Corey Davis

Sep 6, 2016

Postcards from Fran: Beyond-Belief Stories from the Coast

These memories from Hurricane Fran along the coast come from news articles written after the storm. North Carolina’s coast bore the brunt of Hurricane Fran, and from the extreme wind and water emerged some amazing stories that almost sound too wild to be true. Although most coastal residents evacuated, those that stayed for the storm…

Sep 6, 2016

Then and Now, Fran a Standard-Bearer for Hurricane Destruction

When you think of the ingredients for a damaging hurricane in North Carolina, a few things are likely to make the list: major hurricane-strength with high winds, a big storm surge along the coast, and an impact on a large number of people across the state. Twenty years ago in September 1996, Hurricane Fran ticked…

Sep 1, 2016

Above-Normal Temperatures Continue in August

Again in August, we couldn’t escape the ongoing summer heat, and conditions dried out as the month went on. Sizzling Summer Temperatures Continue The meteorological summer wrapped up with another month of above-normal temperatures. The statewide average temperature of 78.26°F ranks as the 3rd-warmest August since 1895. The only years with warmer Augusts in North…

Aug 1, 2016

Persistent Heat Makes For a Sizzling July

Above-normal temperatures were a mainstay during the past month, leading to one of North Carolina’s warmest Julys on record. The Heat Hangs On All Month The statewide average temperature of 79.28°F ranks as the 6th-warmest July since 1895. The heat was all-encompassing, as most weather stations recorded one of their top five warmest Julys on…

Jul 18, 2016

Rapid Reaction: Saturday’s Storms Bring Locally Heavy Rainfall

When residents and even forecasters in central North Carolina woke up on Saturday morning, they had little idea that a rare rainfall event awaited later that day. After all, the morning cloud cover hardly threatened a stormy afternoon. But clearing clouds, warming temperatures, and several storm-specific ingredients resulted in extreme precipitation totals over a small…

Jul 12, 2016

Hurricane Bertha Kick-Started a Stormy Stretch in NC

The summer of 1996 was a wake-up call of sorts for North Carolina’s coastline. Prior to that, it had been ten years since the last hurricane landfall — Charley in 1986. Besides a near miss from Hugo in 1989, which made landfall in South Carolina and caused damage across the Piedmont, North Carolina’s coast had…

Jul 1, 2016

June Dry in the West, Wet in the East

Seasonal temperatures, but not extreme heat, arrived in June, while we saw big contrasts in precipitation across the state. Temperatures Warm, But Extreme Heat Stays Away June’s statewide average temperature of 74.58°F was nearly 10 degrees warmer than May’s average of 64.70°F — a sign that the summer season is now in full swing. That…

Jun 9, 2016

OBITUARY: Remembering the 2015-16 El Niño Event

The El Niño of 2015-16 has passed away after a short but ruinous battle with cool water in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Following multiple attempts during the summer and fall of 2014 to conceive an El Niño, this event was born during the late winter of 2015 to its parent phenomena: warming water and westerly…

Jun 7, 2016

Summer and Tropical Outlook: An ENSO Reversal and its Effects

The oceans, they are a changin’. The El Niño conditions that were so prominent in the Pacific Ocean just five months ago have now nearly vanished, and the current neutral ENSO conditions and expected La Niña event largely shape this year’s summer and tropical outlook. ENSO Update Sea surface temperature anomalies in the central equatorial…