The biggest weather stories during the period were the early season freezes during the middle of the week and the lack of widespread, significant rainfall. A cold front approached the region on Monday, October 17, with highs slightly above average, topping out in the upper 70s to lower 80s. The front helped trigger a few isolated showers and thunderstorms across the Coastal Plain. One thunderstorm produced a wind gust of 44 mph in Moncks Corner in Berkeley County, and a nearby storm spotter in Bonneau reported pea-sized hail.
The coolest and driest airmass of the season pushed into the region on Tuesday, with cooler-than-normal weather across most of the eastern United States through the remainder of the workweek. Daily minimum and maximum temperatures were nearly twenty degrees cooler than usual. High temperatures ranged from the upper 50s to lower 60s in the Upstate and Midlands to near 70 degrees closer to the coast. Overnight temperatures felt more like January than October. On Wednesday, multiple new record low temperatures were observed across the state as morning temperatures dropped into the upper 20s in the mountains to the mid-30s near the coast. The National Weather Service (NWS) station at the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport dropped to 30 degrees, setting a new daily record low temperature for the day of 30 degrees, and the NWS Charleston International Airport station hit a low of 37 degrees, breaking the previous record of 39 in 1948. In addition to the record lows, the NWS station at the Columbia Metropolitan Airport tied the record low maximum temperature of 62 degrees in 1997.
Morning temperatures on Thursday and Friday were not nearly as cold, but the multiple days of freezing and near-freezing temperatures ended the growing season across much of the state. High pressure continued to dominate the region on Friday, providing dry conditions through the weekend. Temperatures remained slightly below normal but started to moderate to near-normal conditions with overnight lows in the 40s and highs in the upper 60s to mid-70s.
(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 | 26.92 | -10.6 |
| Greer Airport | Trace | 41.35 | 0.9 |
| Charlotte, NC Airport | Trace | 33.52 | -2.5 |
| Columbia Metro Airport | 0.00 | 34.21 | -4.0 |
| Orangeburg 2 (COOP) | 0.00 | 44.87s | 1.9s |
| Augusta, GA Airport | 0.00 | 41.14 | 4.1 |
| Florence Airport | 0.00 | 33.24 | -5.3 |
| North Myrtle Beach Airport | Trace | 41.60 | 0.4 | Charleston Air Force Base | Trace | 45.32 | -0.4 |
| Savannah, GA Airport | 0.00 | 33.20 | -8.7 |
| *Weekly precipitation totals ending midnight Sunday. M - denotes total with missing values. s - denotes total with suspect data. |
4-inch depth soil temperature: Clinton: 57 degrees. Columbia: 64 degrees. Barnwell: 58 degrees. Mullins: 62 degrees.
The period was mainly dry, with only a few scattered showers in the Coastal Plain on Monday. Rainfall in most areas that received rainfall amounted to less than half an inch; however, a few CoCoRaHS observers reported over half an inch near Murrells Inlet. Due to the dry weather in October, there was an expansion of the areas of moderate drought (D1) and abnormally dry (D0) conditions reflected on the United States Drought Monitor in the Upstate and along the Savannah River.
With the continued lack of rain across portions of the state, the 14-day averages for streamflow gauges continued to report below-normal flows in the headwaters of the Santee and Savannah rivers. Streamflow dropped to much below typical values at additional gauges along the Saluda and Broad, especially in those located near the Fall Line. Gauges in the ACE and Pee Dee watersheds responded to the lack of precipitation, with several locations reporting below-average streamflow values. The river heights on all the state’s rivers were observed below the flood stage.
