Quiet, dry, and warm weather were the main story during the period with high pressure situated over the region. Some scattered rain showers occurred along a boundary near the coast on Monday, September 19, but most of the state remained rain free. Overnight lows were in the upper 50s to near 70 closer to the coast, but daytime temperatures were slightly above normal, with highs in the mid-80s to low 90s across the state. Temperatures started to warm by mid-week, reaching the low to mid-90s by Wednesday.
Thursday, September 22, was marked with record-breaking warmth, with maximum temperatures between ten and fifteen degrees above normal. Many stations across the state set new daily high-temperature records, including the National Weather Service (NWS) station at the Columbia Metropolitan Airport, which observed a maximum temperature of 99 degrees, breaking the previous record of 96 degrees in 1940 and 2010. A cold front pushed through the area late in the day and triggered some isolated showers and thunderstorms, but those rain totals did not exceed half an inch.
Swells from Hurricane Fiona caused high surf and moderate rip current conditions along the South Carolina coast from Thursday through Saturday.
Behind the front, gusty winds overnight helped usher in drier air into the region by Friday morning. With the lower dewpoints, overnight temperatures were in the 50s, five to ten degrees cooler than normal, and highs on Friday topped out in the upper 70s to low 80s across the state. The Chamber of Commerce weather continued through the weekend with maximum temperatures near normal. However, the drier air helped overnight lows drop to the lower 40s at some locations in the Midlands and Upstate, and low-50s were observed near the coast, between ten and fifteen degrees below normal.
(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 | 0.21 | 26.58 | -8.0 |
| Greer Airport | 0.47 | 40.40 | 3.4 |
| Charlotte, NC Airport | Trace | 30.73 | -2.2 |
| Columbia Metro Airport | Trace | 31.26 | -3.7 |
| Orangeburg 2 (COOP) | 0.00s | 41.55s | 2.3s |
| Augusta, GA Airport | Trace | 39.23 | 4.8 |
| Florence Airport | 0.05 | 29.16 | -5.9 |
| North Myrtle Beach Airport | 0.03 | 37.50 | 0.6 | Charleston Air Force Base | 0.03 | 39.00 | -2.2 |
| Savannah, GA Airport | 0.03 | 32.00 | -6.1 |
| *Weekly precipitation totals ending midnight Sunday. M - denotes total with missing values. s - denotes total with suspect data. |
4-inch depth soil temperature: Clinton: 75 degrees. Columbia: 75 degrees. Barnwell: Not Available. Mullins: 68 degrees.
Most of the state recorded less than a tenth of an inch of rain during the period, with only a few isolated locations recording over half an inch of rain. Most of the reported precipitation came from 24-hour totals from Sunday, September 18, through the morning of Monday, September 19, and some additional rain was recorded from the passage of a cold front on Thursday, September 22.
With two periods of little to no rain across the state, the 14-day averages for streamflow gauges in the headwaters of the Santee and Savannah watersheds dropped to typical values. More gauges across the Midlands and within the Catawba-Wateree basin recorded flows that were below average for the end of September. Elsewhere, gauges in the ACE and most of those in the Pee Dee watershed measured average streamflow values. All the state’s rivers observed heights below the flood stage.
