Driest November on record

A public information statement from Weather Underground.

"No precipitation fell during the month of November in downtown
Charleston. This is the driest November on record and the first time
in history that no precipitation was recored during the month.
The previous driest November occurred in 1996 when 0.21 inches of
precipitation fell. Records for downtown Charleston have been kept
since 1897."

hmmm, with the bee colony collapse, sever droughts over the years, I hope US never sees a famine of some sort in the future. Better save seeds.

r30

it seems like everything that can go wrong has... dead housing market, dollar has fallen in value, no bees, no rain real hot.... thank goodness no hurricanes or terrorist attacks

The South East in a drought not the rest of the country, look at Texas. Weather goes through cycles and the rain will be back soon enough and so will the hurricanes. You do realize we pick up a lot of summer and fall rain from tropical storms? Housing market goes in cycles, when I moved to Hilton Head in 91 condos weren't selling at all. If you looked at one there was 20 exactly the same units for sale. Two years ago condos were selling in a week. Same with the dollar. Diehard you should have seen when a home loan was going for 19% and inflation was on a rampage, what's going on now is nothing compared to the late 70's.

Just to put this into perspective...

I live in Charleston, West of the Ashley, not downtown but close. Although we have had a dry Nov, we did get some rain during the month (where I live). Also, throughout the summer it rained here almost daily and sometimes all day long. Some days my wheel barrow filled up in just one day. I know the maps showed the entire area as drought ridden, but my yard was under water for most of the summer. We had almost daily flash flood watches and warnings all summer long. I certainly don't want it to stay quite this dry, but the 1st week or so of November I was just happy to see the sun again.

I do have some concerns about housing and the declining dollar, but overall I'm inclined to agree with CoreHHI. Things have been worse, much worse, but we pulled through, and we will pull through again.

LOL, typical SC. The statement referred to downtown Charleston, a few blocks away one could have floods. I hate driving home through a driving fain only to turn onto my street and find it bone dry. Scutler, I sure wish I had received just a few of your floods this past month. My greenery does better going into the cold weather if it is well hydrated. Things are pretty dessicated around here. I notice the Camellia sasanqua flower petals are dry and floppy this year and they shatter easily.

ardesia, I am so sorry to hear about the stress to your plants/flowers. As a fellow gardener I can totally relate to the pain of seeing damaged buds/blooms drop prematurely. I do hope that your area will receive rain soon.

Here, it rained almost non-stop from mid spring until Nov, not afternoon showers but monsoons. During that time my 10-day forecast rarely contained more than 1 day with a 'sun' symbol on it. Many of my plants reacted adversely to the constantly water-logged soil and standing water. Most of the summer I had difficulty getting any yard work done. At any given time it was either raining or there was standing water or the soil was too water logged to support my weight or that of the mower. In the lower areas of the back yard grass and weeds grew to 8in or so during periods when I couldn't get back there.

The landscapers who maintain the front yard had similar problems such that by mid summer they had announced that they would no longer be able to do any pruning of trees and shrubs as they were having difficulty just getting lawns mowed (due to rain and standing water). During all of this I lost a number of iris to root rot; even a few that were planted on a slope succumbed to the endless, daily down pours. Were it not for the Ashley River and all of its tributaries and the hard work they did in transporting all of that water out down to the ocean, I suspect we would have been in serious trouble here.

Throughout all of this, weather.com kept reporting that my zip code was in desperate need of rain with rainfall totals some 20+ inches below normal. Yet when I looked at my actual rainfall totals we had received some 16-20in in a month where we should have gotten 2-4. Often the same page sported a "Drought alert" banner and a flashing "Flash Flood warning" banner at the same time! Even weather.com seemed confused.

I complained a lot about the endless rain, but when I started seeing news reports about areas that were running out of drinking water and such, I began to think that maybe the monsoons weren't so bad after all.

Still, I remain optimistic for a better distribution of water next year.

yes, i guess you're right core,in my life, beginning the year you moved to HH, i have never seen such a thing... glad to know the world isn't ending...

Holy moly scutler, you really did get swamped. We have had those dribs and drabs, just enough to keep us out of the nasty drought GA, NC (and upstate SC) have experienced but it has not been enough to wet the soil. We will all hope for a more even distribution in the future.

It's raining her now. Anybody else getting wet? I had finally managed to shame myself into heading out back to do some pruning, and then the bottom fell out.

dry as a bone

Where in the world in West Ashley do you live??? I also live in West Ashley, and only had one month since April that exceeded 2/10ths of an inch (July---almost 4"). That July rainfall saved my butt, because it filled up my pond and made it possible to water my plants up to now. We've had exactly 4/10ths" of rain here since then. That's 4 months essentially without rain. It "rained" here today, and in Mt Pleasant (I drove through it). Not enough to register on the rain gauge at my house, though. I don't consider that "rain"...more like "spit". Ground water is down about 2 ft from normal...pond is getting low again. You may be in the "sweet spot" where all the Gods gather for their rain dance, but the rest of West Ashley sure isn't!

Hi StonoRiver,

Your ID says John's Island. Is that where you are located? I'm in the city of Charleston, just over the Ashley River from the downtown area and along the Ashley River.

I kid you not, until recently I didn't even realize that the rest of Charleston was suffering the drought. We've been trying not to drown, before Nov that is. Before November our drainage ponds were full up to the top such that they no longer appeared to have any kind of sloping bank, but they do appear to be down a bit now.

I don't know how much rain we got today. When I came in it was raining to hard for me to continue working. After that I took a nap and awoke after dark to find that it rained enough to at least soak the foliage and the patio floor, but I have no idea how far it may have penetrated into the soil.

When Nov arrived, I was simply elated to see 4 consecutive sunny days in my forecast.

Ok, here is some 'proof'. This is a photo of the kiddie pool in my backyard. See the debris line almost 1/2 way up the side. That's the outside water line. That's how deep the water was back there after the rain. This photo is from Aug 2. I suspect that I have others with even higher water lines but this is the 1st such photo I was able to find. This is not an anomaly either. It was like this all summer - until Nov. We are dry here, too, now.

are those raccoons?

Yes, but you were supposed to be looking at the water mark, not the critters. lol.
I just wanted to show you that despite what everyone else, the news included is saying, we almost drowned around here this past summer. It was no 'picnic' though. We went months without more than a cursory glimpse of the sun; I couldn't go outside without sinking in 'quicksand'; and I spent most of the summer in very real fear of loosing my house to flooding.

well we're glad to hear that you and your house and yard made it out safe!too much of a good thing is...well....bad

It was misting here this morning so I took an umbrella when I walked the dog. Big mistake! I am afraid I jinxed us, carrying the umbrella guaranteed we would NOT have any rain. Bone dry now.

We got some rain in the AM today. Not much but some.

Admit it's confusing, scutler. My mailing adress is Johns Island (29455) because that's the Post Office that delivers our mail. But we're actually on the West Ashley side of the Stono River near the Limehouse bridge, so we consider ourselves "West Ashley" (because we really aren't ON Johns Island). Doesn't really matter, because we've had no real rain in this whole area since July. Some "splash and dash" showers, but none that registered more than 1/10" on the rain gauge. Dug some Southern wood ferns for a friend out in the woods around my house last week...it was bone dry a foot and a half down into the soil. And I mean BONE DRY! A foot and a half down, in the shady woods! We need some rain here soon!! Can't believe you're so close in geography, so far away in rainfall!

Wow, Stono, I'm truly sorry to hear how dry it is in your area, and you are right, we aren't so very far apart. I used to ride horses a lot at Stono River Stables. I was picturing you over in that area somewhere or down in the Stono area where they have the Stone Cup.

It's very confusing. Just a few weeks ago, a friend in the Berkeley County area, an avid sports fisherman, was telling me that it was too dry for him to do much fishing this summer. He said the waterways in his area were so low that predators could easily grab the fish leaving few if any behind. I was shocked. I had no idea this was happening so close around me when all summer I had been complaining vehemently about the endless downpour in my backyard.

It was quite dry here in early spring such that I ran my underground sprinklers for hours on end at hefty expense to keep my flowers happy. A few times when I didn't run the sprinklers I was shocked to notice areas of my yard that were just dust. Then sometime in mid spring it started to rain and just didn't stop again until November. In fact, I write a daily blog of sorts. I'll have to check it, but I'm sure in July I was getting hammered. For weeks at a time I couldn't mow the back yard (I only do the back; a service does the front.). It was difficult to walk back there. My house is built 'on the slab', and I was truly concerned that it might be flooded.

Recently, after 'talking' with all of you, I asked a few of my colleagues about their experiences with rain/drought this summer. One who lives in the downtown area of Charleston near The Citadel (and who tried his 1st small veggie garden this year) said he had brief periods of dryness interspersed with periods of very heavy rain. He thought he had roughly the same amount of water as usual but that it was poorly distributed, a week or 2 w/o rain followed by days of endless down pours. One who lives in N Charleston said he hadn't paid much attention. Another in S'ville said it had been extremely dry at his house.

I'm very, very sorry. My heart truly goes out to all those in effected areas. I've had just one month of low water (Nov) and a fall month at that, and, frankly, already I'm scared. I can't imagine the kind of drought all of you have described and experienced.

That was the problem for me. Two weeks nothing then bam 2-3 inches in a day or two. Technically we're not in a drought but the rain didn't do that much good because it was running off. Strange thing is my lagoon is filled higher than it has been for the last 2 or 3 years.

That's what my friend in the downtown area said - the rain wasn't very efficient, too much at one time, all ran off. Here it poured for hours day after day. I think we got a lot of the rain that was supposed to go elsewhere, and again it all ran down to the ocean. We could all use some of that rain about now.

That is strange Core, the lagoons in my neighborhood are down 2 or 3 feet and, as the crow flies, we are pretty close neighbors. I tried to plant something this week and I found the same conditions Stono described, it was bone dry as deep as I could dig.

i was just getting dirt from our yard because i ran out of potting soil, and i found that we are dry only an inch or two down... it's so weird how it "decides" to rain one place and not the next

today while i was on the island on Cross island pkwy bridge, it seemed that half of it, the eastern half, was covered in clouds and fog, while the other half was sunny... weird

That was how it looked here. It sort of looked like smoke and I actually thought someone was conducting a controlled burn on Lady's Island or Coosaw but as dry as things are that would be dangerous. Of course, those burns are scheduled months in advance and are rarely cancelled. I couldn't even see across the river this afternoon it was so smokey or foggy. Not a drop of rain however and I don't see any in the offing either.

i think it is coming from the ocean... i'm going to see my grandparents on the island, so while i'm there, i'll walk to the beach and see. i seems to have made its way into Bluffton... the streetlight behind the elm tree in our cul-de-sac is making those visible light rays through the mist if you know what i'm taking about

You are right, I just saw this on w. underground.

"Dense fog along the coast...

A large bank of dense fog will continue to move slowly inland late
this afternoon and into early this evening across parts of
Chatham... Beaufort... japser and Colleton counties. Visibilities
in the fog will drop down to between 1 and 3 miles... but may drop
as low as 1/4 mile or less at times.

The fog will be the most dense along the beaches... sounds...
rivers and the Intracoastal Waterway. This includes the
communities of Tybee Island... Hilton Head Island... Daufuskie
Island and Fripp Island. Motorists should use low beam headlights
and slow down when fog is encountered.

Mariners navigating in the Savannah River... Calibogue Sound... the
Broad River and Saint Helena Sound should consider seeking safe
Harbor until visibilities improve."

Does anyone know how to insert quotes in those neat blue boxes I see on DG sometimes?

Ardesia,

To put quotes in box, type the information as below (BUT replace ( ) with [ ] ):

(quote) my information (/quote)
Then when you choose 'Preview', you should see:

The weather flies like the crow flies, ardesia...which is why I found it so strange that scutler was awash while I, a few miles away, was digging dust! Weather systems traditonally cover hundreds of miles, which in times past meant that scutler, you and I would all get roughly the same thing. Apparently, not anymore. We saw that cloud bank/fog bank/smoke bank east of us here at the Limehouse bridge. It was weird looking. But it didn't bring any rain here. May have offshore, but we're still parched. Still Nothing. Very strange things going on...

It certainly is strange, StonoRiver.

But then maybe this odd behavior is part of a cycle, a cycle long enough that we haven't experienced this part before in our lifetimes. At any rate, let's hope it returns to 'normal' ASAP.

---

Ardesia, It is very easy to put quotes in the box but difficult to tell someone how because the symbols [typed as instruction] get converted to the box. But I figured out a way. Attached is a jpeg (which, therefore, doesn't get converted as text would) showing how to do it. Hopefully, this will help. (There is a DG FAQ page somewhere - in DG Forum maybe - with this and a lot of other useful info.)

I'm convinced it IS part of an as yet unidentified natural cycle, scutler, and I've started planting things accordingly. Lots of succulents, cactii, Nolina, etc.. They're happy as hell with this weather. I hate it! I love my tropicals, which love water. But I'm also realistic enough to accept the wisdom of the old ad that stated "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature..." because in the end game, she wins. Always will. In spite of the politicians. So we adapt...Not happy though...

Yay! CoreHH, you've got it. It worked!

So sorry, StonoRiver,

I can only imagine (for now at least) how awful it must be. We are so accustomed to our near tropical climate here, rich soil, warm weather, long growing season, and rain almost on demand. It's so hard to imagine anything else.

But, since we've never seen this part of the cycle before, we don't know how long it will last. It may well end very soon. Hang in there a little longer...

If anyone is interested, here is the DG FAQ page: http://davesgarden.com/faq/forums/
You can also get to it by going to the Daves Garden Forum at which point it appears on the top menu (under the banner) as 'FAQ'.

i'm gonna try the quote thing... i have been wondering about that

wahoo.... yeah.. the fog to me seemed worst once we got to my neighborhood on the far side of bluffton than it was on any of the bridges.... except on pinckney island. its real patchy too....

[test]

it has to be my computer, it couldn't be my feeble gray matter.

This message was edited Dec 8, 2007 6:52 AM