On Monday, August 8, high pressure was in control of the weather, providing slightly warmer than average temperatures with highs in the 90s and overnight lows in the low to mid-70s. With the typical summer pattern and a weak surface trough near the Fall Line, scattered showers and thunderstorms were observed across the state through the middle of the week. A funnel cloud was reported over Kiawah Island on Monday, and strong storms produced minor wind damage near Long Creek on Tuesday.
By Wednesday, rain chances increased as a cold front approached the area in the late evening. Drizzle and light rain over the northern Midlands and Pee Dee regions on Thursday morning gave way to more widespread shower and thunderstorm activity as the first of two cold fronts moved through the state. There were multiple reports of a waterspout near Morris Island, within the mouth of Charleston Harbor. Late afternoon thunderstorms downed trees and powerlines in Colleton County and produced a wind gust of 54 mph at Folly Beach Pier and offshore wind gusts of more than 60 mph. Unsettled weather continued Friday as the front stalled along the Upstate before a second cold front helped push it through the rest of the state. Strong storms produced wind gusts up to 60 mph in the Charlotte Metropolitan Area, causing downed trees and penny-sized hail near Fort Mill. Lightning started two structure fires in Dorchester County.
Some locations across the state picked up two to three inches of rainfall by Saturday morning. The enforcing cold front late Friday brought cool and dry air into the region for the weekend, and maximum temperatures on Saturday were slightly cooler than normal, with highs reaching the mid-80s. Minimum temperatures on Sunday morning felt more like those measured at the end of September rather than the middle of August. Lows were between five and ten degrees below average, and the National Weather Service station at the Columbia Metropolitan Airport recorded a temperature of 61 degrees, which tied the second coldest low temperature for the day set in 1964. The Charleston Harbor tidal gauge reported a high tide of 7.13 feet late Sunday night, with shallow flooding in low-lying coastal areas.
(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 | 0.11 | 22.18 | -7.1 |
| Greer Airport | 0.71 | 33.36 | 1.8 |
| Charlotte, NC Airport | 1.24 | 27.80 | 0.3 |
| Columbia Metro Airport | 1.55 | 27.80 | -1.6 |
| Orangeburg 2 (COOP) | 0.87s | 34.82s | 1.9s |
| Augusta, GA Airport | 1.35 | 33.17 | 4.1 |
| Florence Airport | 0.54 | 25.19 | -3.5 |
| North Myrtle Beach Airport | 0.69 | 29.30 | 1.8 | Charleston Air Force Base | 0.99 | 27.99 | -4.3 |
| Savannah, GA Airport | 0.75 | 21.28 | -10.2 |
| *Weekly precipitation totals ending midnight Sunday. M - denotes total with missing values. s - denotes total with suspect data. |
4-inch depth soil temperature: Clinton: 80 degrees. Columbia: 78 degrees. Barnwell: 73 degrees. Mullins: 70 degrees.
Much of the state reported between half an inch of rain and an inch during the seven days; however, some areas in the Upstate and Piedmont received less, and other locations in the Lowcountry and Midlands measured over three inches of rain due to slow-moving, isolated thunderstorms. Some of the highest amounts were recorded in portions of Aiken, Colleton, and Oconee counties, where some CoCoRaHS observers reported between four and five inches of rain. With little rain falling in parts of the Upstate, moderate drought (D1) conditions were introduced into Laurens and Spartanburg counties, and another abnormally dry (D0) expansion persisted across the Lowcountry due to the lack of widespread precipitation.
Despite some localized heavy precipitation, the general trends in streamflow values continued to decline across all four watersheds for a third straight period. Gauges that reported flows on the lower side of the normal percentile range dropped to flow values below average, with a few gauges on rivers in the Midlands and Pee Dee dropping to values much below normal. All the state’s rivers observed heights below the flood stage.
