WEATHER SUMMARY
After a quiet start on Monday, early morning storms Tuesday and throughout the day produced episodes of severe to violent weather. High winds, large hail, flash flooding, isolated tornadoes were reported from the mountains to the sea. Most notable were a Tornado in Dorchester County and the two-inch sized hail in Abbeville County. Spartanburg County reported damaging winds of at least 70 mph. Dry, westerly surface winds followed the storms with increasing temperatures into the weekend. By Saturday, the mercury had climbed into the mid-90's, making it feel like Summer had arrived. Partly cloudy skies and scattered thundershowers were observed on Sunday. The average statewide temperature for the period was six degrees above normal.
PRECIPITATION AND TEMPERATURE DATA
The highest temperature reported was 95 degrees at Jamestown and Conway on May 10. The lowest temperature was 46 degrees at Long Creek on the morning of May 5. The heaviest official 24-hour rainfall reported was 3.03" at Salem and Table Rock ending at 7:00 a.m. on May 6. The average statewide rainfall for the period was 1.2".
Precipitation
Period 2003 Deviation* Temperature
Location Total Total From Avg. Maximum Minimum
Greer 2.40 22.77 3.7A 88 54
Columbia 1.29 20.36 3.3A 91 61
Florence 0.45 18.35 2.2A 92 54
Charleston 0.87 16.79 1.8A 92 63
N Myrtle Beach 0.24 19.56 5.6A 88 54
Augusta, Ga 0.28 20.15 3.0A 90 65
A=Above, B=Below
Note: Weekly rainfall amounts are for the 24-hour period ending midnight Sunday.
SOIL
4 inch depth average soil temperature: Columbia 76 degrees.
RIVERS AND SURF
South Carolina river stages were reported near to above normal.
Surf temperatures at Myrtle Beach and Savannah will average around 72 degrees.
sco@water.dnr.state.sc.us http://water.dnr.state.sc.us/climate/sco/weekly/wk051103.html