The period started with quiet weather on Monday, February 10, with a few clouds and gradual clearing throughout the day. With high pressure centered over eastern Tennessee, morning lows through the middle of the week were in the upper 20s to low 30s, up to ten degrees below normal at some locations, and highs were near normal, with daytime temperatures in the upper 50s to mid-60s.
Thursday, February 22, started dry, and morning temperatures were in the low to mid-30s but rose into the upper 60s and low 70s ahead of an approaching cold front. Clouds increased throughout the day, and showers developed overnight. By Friday morning, locations in the Upstate had recorded between half an inch and an inch of rain. As the cold front passed through the region, it triggered isolated thunderstorms across parts of the state. A few severe storms produced pea- to dime-sized hail in portions of Fairfield, Kershaw, Lee, Lexington, Newberry, and Richland counties.
Some lingering showers and storms moved through the area Saturday, and a 60-mph wind gust was recorded from a thunderstorm at the National Weather Service station at the Florence Regional Airport. Breezy conditions followed a reinforcing cold front Saturday evening, filtering drier and cooler air into the region. Temperatures on Sunday morning dropped into the low 20s in parts of the Upstate and below freezing across the Midlands. Despite the sunny conditions, high temperatures were below normal, only rising into the low to mid-50s.
(Note: The highest and lowest official temperatures and highest precipitation totals provided below are based on observations from the National Weather Service (NWS) Cooperative Observer network and the National Weather Service's Forecast Offices.)| Weekly* | Since Jan 1 | Departure | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anderson Airport | 0.64 | 11.73 | 4.2 |
| Greer Airport | 0.48 | 12.85 | 5.3 |
| Charlotte, NC Airport | 0.22 | 8.09 | 1.8 |
| Columbia Metro Airport | 0.27 | 5.11 | -1.4 |
| Orangeburg 2 (COOP) | 0.00 | 5.81 | -1.6 |
| Augusta, GA Airport | 0.01 | 6.06 | -1.0 |
| Florence Airport | 0.24 | 4.34 | -1.4 |
| North Myrtle Beach Airport | 0.30 | 2.95 | -2.9 | Charleston Air Force Base | 0.28 | 5.40 | -0.7 |
| Savannah, GA Airport | 0.01 | 5.56 | -0.2 |
| *Weekly precipitation totals ending midnight Sunday. M - denotes total with missing values. s - denotes total with suspect data. |
4-inch depth soil temperature: Clinton: 44 degrees. Columbia: 50 degrees. Barnwell: 46 degrees. Mullins: 48 degrees.
The only rain during the period occurred due to the passage of a cold front from Thursday evening until Saturday afternoon. Most of the state recorded less than a quarter of an inch of rain, though some portions of the Pee Dee reported up to half an inch of rain. The highest rainfall amounts were measured in the Upstate, especially in Anderson Greenville, Oconee, Pickens, and Spartanburg counties, where some CoCoRaHS observers reported amounts up to 0.75 inches.
Most of the 14-day average streamflow values across the state recorded normal flows, and areas with higher rainfall measured flows slightly above average. While some of the gauges across the Midlands showed improvements in stream flows, gauges in the Pee Dee region continued to report slightly below normal streamflow values. Due to the drier conditions, river height gauges across the Lowcountry that received higher rainfall totals during the previous periods saw values drop out of the minor flood stage.
