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NC Extremes: 2007’s Drought Emerged Quickly, Affected Millions in NC

Corey Davis

Jan 4, 2016

December Sees Record-Setting Warmth, Wet Weather

Unseasonably warm conditions and more rain were our weather storylines in December. A Month of Un-Winterlike Warmth By all measures — average high, average low, and average mean temperatures — this December was the warmest on record since 1895 across North Carolina. The average statewide temperature of 53.64°F was a full 3 degrees warmer than…

Dec 17, 2015

NC Extremes: The Stories Behind Our Extremes

This is the final post of 2015 in our year-long series about North Carolina’s weather extremes. Every month this year, we have covered some of North Carolina’s weather records from hot to cold, wet to dry, and fire to ice. These records describe a state with a wide variety of weather conditions and plenty of…

Dec 4, 2015

NC Extremes: An Ice Storm for the Ages

This post is part of our year-long series about North Carolina’s weather extremes. Winter weather in North Carolina can be a fickle thing. When cold air and moisture come together at the right time, the outcome can be an impressive snowstorm. However, even small temperature differences throughout the atmosphere can turn a potentially scenic, snowy…

Dec 1, 2015

A Warm, Wet November Concludes NC’s Wettest Fall

More rain in November continued this fall’s wet pattern. Mild Days, Warm Nights Elevate Temperatures While the waning daylight hours and fallen leaves made it look like the end of fall or beginning of winter, it certainly didn’t feel that way for most of the month. The statewide average temperature of 53.89°F ranks as the…

Nov 19, 2015

Analog Winters Help Show the Possibilities for This Year

Our Winter Outlook series has already covered the latest on El Niño and polar patterns. Today’s post looks at past years with similar conditions to see how those winters turned out and what it means for this year. Like the snowflakes that can seem so rare around these parts, every winter is different in North…

Nov 17, 2015

Polar Patterns Could Open the Gates for Cold, Wintry Weather

As our Winter Outlook series continues, we turn our attention to the polar jet stream, which will largely determine how much of this winter’s precipitation will fall in a frozen form and how cold our temperatures might get. In many ways, the polar jet stream — controlled by the now-infamous polar vortex — can be…

Nov 12, 2015

Strong El Niño Drives Pacific Patterns, Jet Stream Impacts

The second post in our 2015-16 Winter Outlook series turns to the Pacific Ocean for an update on El Niño and its possible impacts to North Carolina this winter. Over the past nine months, the waters of the equatorial Pacific Ocean have been warming and one of the strongest El Niño events on record has…

Nov 10, 2015

Woolly Worms, Almanacs, and August Weather Predict the Winter

Our 2015-16 Winter Outlook series begins today and concludes on November 23rd. In these five posts, we will discuss predictions and patterns that may shape North Carolina’s winter weather. Folklore is a popular source for predictions about the weather, and North Carolina has a rich collection of winter weather folklore, ranging from insects to almanacs…

Nov 5, 2015

NC Extremes: 2007’s Drought Emerged Quickly, Affected Millions in NC

This post is part of our year-long series about North Carolina’s weather extremes. In some of the extreme weather events we’ve covered this year, there were dramatic impacts like an 18-foot storm surge or a line of damaging tornadoes. Other events had a clear peak, like when morning lows dropped below zero on “the Coldest…