The week started on Monday, July 25, with near-normal temperatures, with pleasant and breezy conditions. Isolated, strong thunderstorms with locally heavy rain developed during the first part of the workweek due to a frontal boundary to the north of the area and a trough across North and South Carolina. Thunderstorms caused minor wind damage near Roebuck, and heavy rain, nearly four inches in a little over an hour, was reported in Mayo in Spartanburg County on Tuesday afternoon. Lifeguards reported moderate rip currents along portions of the South Carolina coast. Temperatures were between five and ten degrees above average during most of the work week, with lows reported in the mid to upper 70s and highs in the upper 90s. The minimum temperature on Tuesday at the National Weather Service station in downtown Charleston only dropped to 82 degrees, tying a record set in 2012. These warm temperatures combined with the humidity to produce heat indices ranging between 105 and 110 degrees.
High pressure settled over the region by mid-week, and the frontal boundary stretching across the Midwest to the Mid-Atlantic helped trigger more scattered storms across the state, keeping the weather pattern unsettled through the end of the work week.
A weak cold front moved through the state, bringing an increased chance for widespread shower and thunderstorm activity on Saturday. Thunderstorms in Anderson County produced strong winds that downed trees, including one that fell on a mobile home and dropped nickel-sized hail near Powdersville. A CoCoRaHS observer in Georgetown County recorded a 24-hour rainfall total of over four inches by early Sunday morning. The front drifted back to the north, and the region returned to a more typical summer pattern on Sunday, with low temperatures in the 70s and highs in the 90s.
(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 | 0.27 | 21.88 | -5.7 |
Greer Airport | 0.49 | 32.36 | 3.1 |
Charlotte, NC Airport | 2.58 | 25.78 | 0.3 |
Columbia Metro Airport | Trace | 25.75 | -1.3 |
Orangeburg 2 (COOP) | 0.15s | 33.10s | 2.8s |
Augusta, GA Airport | Trace | 31.41 | 4.6 |
Florence Airport | Trace | 23.17 | -3.2 |
North Myrtle Beach Airport | 0.28 | 28.60 | 3.6 | Charleston Air Force Base | 0.03 | 26.89 | -2.3 |
Savannah, GA Airport | 0.14 | 18.98 | -10.0 |
*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: 85 degrees. Barnwell: 78 degrees. Mullins: 72 degrees.
Much of the state reported less than a quarter of an inch of rain during the seven days. Some locations measured totals closer to an inch due to slow-moving, isolated thunderstorms. The highest amounts were recorded near Georgetown, where some CoCoRaHS observers reported between two and four inches of rain. The rainfall during the previous periods helped improve the lingering drought in parts of the Lowcountry. The remaining moderate drought (D1) conditions were removed from Jasper County. However, lingering abnormally dry (D0) conditions persisted across the state due to the lack of widespread precipitation.
With the hit-or-miss nature of the precipitation, streamflow values started to decline, even though many gauges reported flows within the normal percentile range. After two relatively dry periods, some gauges in the Midlands and Upstate drop to below-average flow. All the state’s rivers observed heights below the flood stage.