Extreme heat combined with very little rain has led to serious drought conditions throughout the mid-Atlantic this July.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00And the mid-Atlantic region is in the midst of a flash drought.
00:05Hot weather, strong sun, and the lack of rain has led to a widespread drought for millions
00:10and is expected to have a tremendous impact on local economies.
00:14For more on this flash drought, we're joined by AccuWeather severe weather expert Bill
00:19Dager.
00:20And you know, Bill, you just finished up a story that is posted on AccuWeather.com about
00:24a flash drought.
00:26Can you first explain to our viewers what that actually means and how we get them?
00:32Yeah, flash drought, quite simply, is a drought that develops very quickly and they're very
00:36common in the summer months when the temperature warms up very quickly, the rain just suddenly
00:42stops falling.
00:43It can develop in a matter of weeks and we've been seeing that in the mid-Atlantic over
00:47the past month and a half or so.
00:49We went from normal conditions to full-blown severe drought conditions across the mid-Atlantic
00:54in just the span of four or five weeks.
00:56In fact, take a look at this 30-day rainfall here across the eastern part of the United
01:01States.
01:02You can see where it's been wet.
01:03You know, it's interesting, when we came into the summertime, Bill, it was the Midwest and
01:08the plains that had the drought.
01:10We had very little drought across the southeast, but then we flipped the switch with the weather
01:16and look at how wet it's been in the Midwest, but look at how dry it's been across that
01:19area in the mid-Atlantic and southeast.
01:22Yeah, it's amazing how quickly the script flipped there.
01:25We saw a very wet spring, even in parts of the east, and then all of a sudden the rain
01:30just stopped.
01:31And this time of year, with the sun out, the evaporation rates are very high, so that sucks
01:35water out of the ground.
01:36And we've been noticing impacts to agriculture.
01:39We've been noticing low stream flows in the region over the past several weeks, and we're
01:44looking for some relief in the form of showers and thunderstorms.
01:47It just hasn't really come to most areas yet.
01:50And you can see the interior, especially from the Carolinas to western Virginia, western
01:55Maryland dealing with the worst of the conditions.
01:57Yeah, and it's amazing how quickly they've been occurring, and of course, temperatures,
02:04as you mentioned, has played a huge impact.
02:06Now, we're going to flip the switch again here, Bill, because as we get into next week,
02:11we're going to watch a little dip in the jet stream going across the central part of the
02:14United States.
02:15What I have here, now listen, this may not be exactly right, but I think it shows the
02:19general theme.
02:20This is future rainfall from now until 10 days from now, ending late next week.
02:28It's good news for sure, yeah.
02:30We're looking at kind of a pattern change across the area, a break from the extreme
02:34heat, a return of some widespread shower and thunderstorm activity.
02:38And unlike the last several weeks, where it maybe impacts the region for a day or two
02:41is very spotty, this looks to be widespread activity that lasts for several days here,
02:47right into the weekend and even next week.
02:50So, yeah, we're looking forward to some rain in this region, because like you said at the
02:53onset, there are economic impacts to this, corn, soybean, cotton crops can be impacted
03:00by this.
03:01We already had some impacts that are going to last no matter how much rain there is,
03:05but we can at least, you know, head off some of the more severe impacts if we can get some
03:09rain back into the region over the next few weeks.
03:12And the good news is with the clouds and the thunderstorms, it also restricts the other
03:16ingredient for flash droughts, the temperatures are going to be reduced.
03:21Boy, has it been hot in that area so far this summer.
03:24It really has been.
03:25Triple digit heat in many areas over the last couple of days and, you know, barely anything
03:29measured in those rain gauges.
03:31So to have both of those things come together, lower temperatures, increased chance of rain,
03:36they're going to look forward to that.
03:37Our AccuWeather severe weather expert, Bill Daiger, explaining flash drought.
03:41Thanks for joining us this morning, Bill.