The warm and humid conditions, with daily chances of scattered showers and thunderstorms, continued on Monday, July 8. A weak surface boundary and the sea breeze helped develop convective storms throughout the day. Early morning storms produced a waterspout off South Forest Beach on Hilton Head Island. While temperatures at the beginning of the week were near average, lows in the mid– to upper 70s and highs in the mid-90s gradually warmed throughout the period. When combined with the high dewpoints, heat indices across the state reached 105 degrees or higher, prompting the National Weather Service (NWS) to issue heat advisories and excessive heat warnings during the period.
The boundary drifted northward on Tuesday, allowing more moisture to stream back into the region. Slow-moving storms, producing between two and four inches of rain in the Charleston area on Tuesday afternoon, caused flooding in parts of downtown Charleston. By Wednesday, showers and thunderstorms were more widespread ahead of an approaching cold front. The NWS station at the North Myrtle Beach Airport recorded a low of 80 degrees on Wednesday morning. Drier air worked into the region late Wednesday into Thursday morning behind a surface boundary that provided a welcomed break from oppressive overnight temperatures as some locations recorded lows in the upper 60s.
Moisture flowed back into the state on Friday as an area of low pressure moved across the Southeast. The chance for afternoon showers and thunderstorms increased through the day, and the pattern of scattered, diurnally-driven showers and thunderstorms lasted through the weekend and into the following week. Temperatures on Saturday and Sunday rose into the upper 90s in portions of the Upstate and above 100 degrees across the Midlands and Pee Dee. The NWS station at the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport measured a high of 98 degrees on the 14th, tying the daily record set in 1986 and 2016.
(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 | 0.01 | 29.23 | 3.6 |
| Greer Airport | Trace | 30.11 | 3.7 |
| Charlotte, NC Airport | 0.05 | 25.53 | 2.2 |
| Columbia Metro Airport | 0.10 | 24.35 | 0.3 |
| Orangeburg 2 (COOP) | 1.19 | 20.67 | -5.2 |
| Augusta, GA Airport | 0.05 | 24.14 | -0.2 |
| Florence Airport | 0.40 | 18.51 | -4.6 |
| North Myrtle Beach Airport | 2.42 | 19.61 | -2.3 | Charleston Air Force Base | 3.20 | 28.39 | 2.8 |
| Savannah, GA Airport | 1.63 | 26.00 | 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: Not Available. Columbia: 84 degrees. Barnwell: 79 degrees. Mullins: 74 degrees.
Most of the state, on the western side of the Interstate 77 corridor, including the Upper and Central Savannah River basins, recorded less than a tenth of an inch of rain. A few isolated locations in these regions measured up to half an inch due to the scattered nature of thunderstorms. The slow movement of storms along the immediate coast and in some interior portions of the Lowcountry and Pee Dee regions produced higher rainfall totals, with some CoCoRaHS observers reporting up to four inches of rain in Beaufort, Charleston, and Horry counties. Despite scattered shower activity during the period, the extent of the moderate drought (D1) and severe drought (D2) conditions on the U.S. Drought Monitor expanded across the state, and D2 conditions were added to portions of Colleton, Hampton, and Jasper counties. Extreme drought (D3) conditions were introduced into much of the Pee Dee due to the continued below-normal precipitation totals, lack of soil moisture, and below-normal streamflow across the region. The last time the USDM depicted D3 conditions in the state was November 2023. On July 9, the South Carolina Drought Response Committee met to discuss the impacts of the current drought conditions and moved every county in the state to a drought status designation. For more information, see www.scdrought.com
Rainfall from the previous period was reflected in the continued slight improvements in the 14-day average streamflow values at gauges in parts of the Upstate, including those in the Central Savannah and Upper Santee watersheds. However, worsening drought conditions, including below-normal precipitation, caused the 14-day average streamflow values at gauges across the northern Midlands and Coastal Plain to remain below average. Most gauges within the Pee Dee Watershed continued to report values well below average for this time of year, with some gauges reporting the lowest streamflow values since 2007 and 2011; however, rain in some of the Pee Dee River basin's headwaters caused a brief rise in the values. River height and tide height gauges across the state remained below the action stage during the week.
