On Monday, March 21, high pressure over the region provided fair weather for the beginning of the period, with lows in the upper 30s to low 40s and highs in the upper 60s to low 70s. The dry weather and seasonable temperatures continue through Tuesday, but an approaching storm system that produced severe weather in the Deep South would impact the region on Wednesday.
The intense cold front produced severe weather in the Upstate late Wednesday afternoon, including heavy rain, strong winds, and isolated tornadoes. A CoCoRaHS observer near Tigerville in Greenville County reported 1.96 inches of rain in four hours. Survey teams from National Weather Service (NWS) Office in Greer confirmed two tornadoes in Pickens County from a storm that moved through the region. An EF2, with estimated peak winds of 115 mph, touched down near Six Mile and lifted near Pickens. The tornado caused extensive tree damage along the 6-mile path and significant damage to a home and mobile home. A second tornado, an EF0 with peak winds of 70 mph, briefly touched down near Six Mile, uprooting and downing trees. On Thursday, the front continued to generate rainfall along the coast, and WeatherFlow sensors around Charleston Harbor reported wind gusts between 45 and 50 mph.
After the main front cleared the state by Thursday night, a reinforcing dry cold front pushed through the region on Friday, and a drier and cooler surface high-pressure system moved back into the Southeast. Temperatures on Saturday started in the low to mid-40s and rose into the upper 60s by mid-afternoon. The drier air allowed temperatures to drop below freezing by Sunday morning in parts of the Piedmont and Upstate, including 28 degrees recorded at the NWS station at the Rock Hill York County Airport and 31 degrees at the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport. The breezy conditions through the weekend, combined with low humidity values, caused elevated fire weather conditions across 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 | 0.35 | 11.05 | -0.7 |
| Greer Airport | 0.92 | 13.27 | 1.4 |
| Charlotte, NC Airport | 0.21 | 11.77 | 1.7 |
| Columbia Metro Airport | 0.02 | 7.67 | -2.4 |
| Orangeburg 2 (COOP) | 0.07s | 11.21s | 0.1s |
| Augusta, GA Airport | 0.03 | 8.52 | -2.6 |
| Florence Airport | 0.13 | 10.07 | 1.2 |
| North Myrtle Beach Airport | 1.34 | 8.97 | -0.3 | Charleston Air Force Base | 0.88 | 4.88 | -4.5 |
| Savannah, GA Airport | 0.67 | 5.60 | -3.5 |
| *Weekly precipitation totals ending midnight Sunday. M - denotes total with missing values. s - denotes total with suspect data. |
4-inch depth soil temperature: Clinton: Not Available. Columbia: 65 degrees. Barnwell: Not Available. Mullins: 59 degrees.
Most of the precipitation during the period fell from Thursday through Friday, with areas of the Upstate measuring more than two inches of rain. An additional swath of higher rainfall totals was observed along the coast, where some CoCoRaHS observers near Charleston and Pawleys Island reported up to two inches of rain. Locations in the Midlands and interior Pee Dee recorded less than a quarter of an inch of rain. Over the last few periods, rainfall has helped alleviate abnormally dry conditions (D0) and moderate drought (D1) in some areas; however, these conditions persist in the state's eastern half.
With the varied rainfall during the period, streamflow gauges across much of the state continued to report normal flows. However, some gauges that received higher totals reported above normal flows, especially in portions of the Upstate. Some of the Pee Dee watershed gauges returned to typical streamflow values, though low values were reported at the gauges on the Little Pee Dee River at Galivants Ferry and on the Waccamaw River near Longs. As the water moved from the headwaters of the Santee and Savannah basins, a few river height gauges rose into the action stage, with forecasted heights to reach a minor flood stage. Most of the rivers observed heights below the flood stage.
