Rain This Week Not Enough to End Drought

Much-needed rain is forecast for our area again today, but is it enough to put a dent in the eight-month drought?

A 60-80% chance of showers from a slow-moving weather system is expected to dump a couple of inches of the wet stuff on our area through today.

But meteorologist Scott Krentz with the National Weather Service in Greenville-Spartanburg said it’s only a drop in a very dry bucket.

It’s not going to end the drought, that’s for sure,” he said. “We’re expecting two to three inches through Wednesday. It will provide some relief, but as far as bringing up dams and ground water, it’s not going to bring it up to pre-drought conditions.”

Meteorologists have blamed the drought conditions on a stalled La Nina pattern that has kept a high-pressure system locked over the Southeast, preventing little if any rain from getting in.

Krentz said experts are not expecting that pattern to disappear anytime soon, but they are hoping it will weaken enough to let more rain move through this winter.

“We are getting into more of a wintertime pattern, which is good because we will be having more of these types of systems coming through,” he noted. “If they start coming in like this system where it’s slower and the moisture has time to get here ahead of the system we will get more rain, but it’s hard to say. We could return to more high pressure like we’ve seen the past couple of months, but hopefully we will return to a more wintertime pattern.”

Krentz said however, area climatologists are still calling for a warmer than usual and drier than usual winter with no real end to the drought in sight until spring.