COLUMBIA, S.C. — Another day, another forecast featuring no rain. It has become pretty common lately with 17 days in a row now featuring no rain here in the Midlands. Since the beginning of September, we have recorded only 6 days of rain here in Columbia that totaled 4.43 inches. While this might seem like a lot, most of this rain only fell on 2 days.
Since our last day of rain, we have started a dry stretch of over 2 weeks. Looking at our past, being dry is typical for this time of the year. Our longest dry stretches are in the months of October and November. This includes the longest, which occurred in 1961 for 40 days.
A recent dry stretch was in October and November of 2016. This is what led to the Mountain fires in the Carolinas that impacted air quality here in the Midlands. Those fires ended up burning almost 90 thousand acres of land across multiple states.
Let’s take a closer look at why we have been dry and will likely be for at least another week. High pressure whether in the northeast or over our region has kept the air rain-free and dry.
This will come into play this week. Even though we are expecting a cold front, dry air is already established in the area which will likely keep any rain chances away in the near future.
With the next rain chance coming on the 14th at the earliest, our drought monitor will likely expand drought conditions when updated this Thursday.