The week started on Monday, March 11, with quiet weather continuing through Thursday, thanks to a high pressure centered over the South. With a dry airmass over the region, radiational cooling allowed temperatures in portions of the Upstate to drop into the upper 20s on Monday and Tuesday mornings. Other locations around the state reported low temperatures in the low to mid-30s. High temperatures reached the upper 60s to mid-70s under mostly clear skies.
Rain chances remained low throughout the week as high pressure continued to provide sunny and dry conditions across the Southeast. A mid-week warmup started on Wednesday, with well above-average temperatures observed by the weekend. Maximum temperatures were up to fifteen degrees above average, with highs reported in the mid to upper 80s. The National Weather Service station at the Charleston International Airport recorded a high of 86 degrees on Friday, which felt more like the end of May than the Ides of March.
Moisture increased over the region on Friday ahead of a frontal system, and scattered showers and thunderstorms developed across the state during the late evening hours. By Saturday morning, portions of the Upstate had recorded over an inch of rain as the front had stalled over the Midlands. On Sunday, the cold front had pushed east of the region, and high pressure in the Central Plains helped funnel some cooler air into the area. Rain chances increased through the daytime hours with isolated to scattered showers as a second cold front moved through the state.
(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 | 0.17 | 16.50 | 6.0 |
| Greer Airport | 0.77 | 18.64 | 8.2 |
| Charlotte, NC Airport | 0.55 | 11.63 | 2.8 |
| Columbia Metro Airport | 0.27 | 10.91 | 2.0 |
| Orangeburg 2 (COOP) | 0.12 | 10.01 | 0.0 |
| Augusta, GA Airport | 0.16 | 9.25 | -0.6 |
| Florence Airport | 0.28 | 8.44 | 0.6 |
| North Myrtle Beach Airport | 0.11 | 5.54 | -2.6 | Charleston Air Force Base | Trace | 11.76 | 3.5 |
| Savannah, GA Airport | 0.16 | 7.86 | -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: 56 degrees. Columbia: 62 degrees. Barnwell: 56 degrees. Mullins: 61 degrees.
The period was drier than the previous ones, with most of the state recording less than a quarter of an inch of rain. Areas along and north of the Interstate 85 corridor received the most precipitation, with totals of up to 1.50 inches, resulting from a passing storm system on Friday evening and into early Saturday morning.
Most of the 14-day average streamflow values across the state recorded normal flows; however, gauges in portions of the Upper Savannah and Broad River Basins continued to report above-normal to much-above-normal streamflow values due to the rainfall from the previous periods. River height gauges in portions of the Midlands and Pee Dee regions that had reached minor flood stage started to decline. The river height gauges on the Lower Savannah River continued to rise slowly, reaching the minor flood stage at the end of the period.
