On Monday, October 7, a surface cold front approached the state and slowly pushed through the area in the late afternoon. High temperatures were up to ten degrees warmer than average, with daytime temperatures reaching the upper 80s and a few locations hitting 90 degrees. The National Weather Service (NWS) station at the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport tied its daily record maximum temperature of 87 degrees, set in 2018. While there was limited moisture, a few showers developed along the front across portions of the northern Midlands. As the front moved through the state on Tuesday, drier and cooler conditions began to settle into the region, and both high and low temperatures throughout the remainder of the work week were up to ten degrees cooler than normal.
Late on Wednesday, October 9, Hurricane Milton made landfall near Siesta Key, Florida, as a Category 3 storm with winds of 120 mph. The storm weakened to a Category 1 hurricane as it moved across central Florida and into the Atlantic Ocean. It produced a few wind gusts up to 25 mph in the Midlands and Pee Dee. The Charleston Harbor Tide Gage measured a wind gust of 43 mph, and the Hilton Head Airport station reported a peak wind gust of 40 mph on Thursday morning. Some offshore buoys recorded wind gusts up to 55 mph. Rainfall across the Lowcountry was limited, with locations recording less than half an inch from Hurricane Milton. Tides stayed below minor flood stage (7.0 ft MLLW) as Hurricane Milton passed to the south of the region. By late afternoon on October 10, the storm transitioned to a strong extratropical low and continued to move eastward toward Bermuda.
Hazardous marine and surf conditions were still observed along the South Carolina coast on Friday before the northerly winds diminished as the remnants of Milton moved farther out to sea. High pressure moved into the region, providing cooler and drier conditions through Sunday morning. Low temperatures on Saturday were up to fifteen degrees below normal, with temperatures in the upper 30s observed in portions of the state, and daytime temperatures reached the mid-to-upper 70s. While morning temperatures on Sunday were still below average, in the mid-40s, high temperatures reached the low to mid-80s, up to ten degrees above 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 | 0.00 | 46.09 | 9.5 |
| Greer Airport | 0.00 | 47.26 | 8.0 |
| Charlotte, NC Airport | 0.00 | 45.55 | 10.5 |
| Columbia Metro Airport | Trace | 45.72 | 8.5 |
| Orangeburg 2 (COOP) | 0.00 | 41.03 | -0.7 |
| Augusta, GA Airport | 0.00 | 39.38 | 3.7 |
| Florence Airport | Trace | 43.46 | 5.9 |
| North Myrtle Beach Airport | 0.00 | 43.78 | 3.9 | Charleston Air Force Base | 0.00 | 47.86 | 3.4 |
| Savannah, GA Airport | 0.01 | 49.28 | 8.5 |
| *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: 70 degrees. Barnwell: 64 degrees. Mullins: 67 degrees.
For the second period, little to no rain fell across the state. A portion of the northern Midlands recorded less than a quarter of an inch of rain as a cold front pushed through the state at the beginning of the period. Areas along the immediate Lowcountry coast saw showers from the outer rainbands of Hurricane Milton. Up to half an inch of rain fell in coastal Beaufort, Charleston, Colleton, and Jasper counties. Due to the lack of rainfall since Tropical Cyclone Helene passed, abnormally dry (D0) conditions were re-introduced into the state, mainly in the Lowcountry and interior portions of the Pee Dee region, on the U.S. Drought Monitor map released on Thursday, October 10.
Despite the lack of measurable precipitation, the 14-day average streamflow values at most of the gauges across the state’s watersheds in the Midlands and Coastal Plain continued to report values above average. However, gauges in the Upper Savannah and Saluda River basins had returned to normal stream flows for this time of year. River height gauges continued to drop out of minor flood and action stage in the Coastal Plain, with only the Waccamaw River near Conway reporting river heights within the action stage.
