Skip to main content
Florence-Soaked September Was Warm and Wet in NC

flooding

Sep 16, 2019

Floyd’s Flooding Overwhelmed Eastern North Carolina

This is the third post in our “Stormy Summer” series looking back at some memorable hurricane anniversaries occurring in 2019. Out of almost 150 years of recorded hurricanes in North Carolina through 1999, none were quite like Floyd. When the sixth named storm of the 1999 season arrived at our coast twenty years ago today,…

Sep 16, 2019

Floyd’s Inundation Along the Tar River Spurred a Call to Action

Rob Lipford knew it was an unusual event when even the water in his yard was seeking higher ground. At his home in Rocky Mount, the low-lying backyard always tended to fill up first during a heavy rain event. But when several inches of water began creeping around the side of his house toward the…
Floyd Images

Sep 16, 2019

Farmers Felt Floyd’s Full Force, Beginning in Onslow County

Perhaps the most famous pictures taken during Hurricane Floyd were not of people but of pigs. Aerial shots showed hog farms flooded by the storm, with the animals who hadn’t drowned riding out the event from the roofs of barns. It wasn’t exactly pigs flying, but the livestock — like the flood waters that drove…

Sep 12, 2019

Dennis Menaced the Coast and Set the Stage for Floyd

This is the second post in our “Stormy Summer” series looking back at some memorable hurricane anniversaries occurring in 2019. Before the tropical terror that was Hurricane Floyd in September 1999, another storm hit the North Carolina coast, and while its impact at the time was relatively minor, it played a major role in amplifying…

Sep 9, 2019

Rapid Reaction: Dorian Drenches and Damages the Coast

After a day-long trip up our coastline, Hurricane Dorian departed North Carolina with a brief landfall at Cape Hatteras and a trail of damage left behind from its winds, rain, storm surge, and even a few tornadoes. Dorian became the state’s first landfalling storm of the year and the fourth hurricane to affect the coast…

Jul 2, 2019

June Rains Offer Relief, But Not Full Drought Recovery

June brought wet weather across much of North Carolina, as well as a mid-month break from the heat. It also saw our office get out and about to a number of weather stations and events across the state and even across the country. A Wet Month in the North and West After a dry May…

Nov 2, 2018

Michael Ushers in Fall in North Carolina

We nearly felt all four seasons during October, including a warm start, a mid-month tropical storm, the eventual arrival of fall, and the first frost in some areas, which left growers finishing their harvests. Michael Makes for Wet Weather in the West The second tropical system passing through North Carolina in as many months delivered…

Oct 12, 2018

Rapid Reaction: Michael Whips Up Winds and Widespread Damage

Less than a month removed from Florence, North Carolina has now weathered another hit from a hurricane. This time, though, it was the Piedmont — not the coast — that bore the brunt of the damage in our state. In Florence’s case, we noted that it had few equals in our hurricane history because of…

Oct 3, 2018

Florence-Soaked September Was Warm and Wet in NC

Hurricane Florence’s impacts on North Carolina were our main weather stories in September. This climate summary looks at the heavy rainfall, an early damage assessment, as well as our warm weather over the past month. A Soggy September We’ve already detailed the record-breaking rainfall from Hurricane Florence, and even with two dry weeks after the…