Lakes across the Triangle are beginning to look like the surface of Mars. Though no one has been forced to emulate fictional astronaut Mark Watney and turn rocket fuel into water for survival, the Triangle is in the midst of the worst drought the region has seen in over a decade, one of the hardest hit areas in a state where every corner is experiencing some level of drought.
Corey Davis has spent his career understanding environmental scenarios like the one Triangle residents are facing today. With degrees in meteorology and atmospheric science, Davis serves as an assistant state climatologist at North Carolina State University’s Climate Office, “the primary scientific extension resource for weather and climate science for the state of North Carolina,” and leads the charge on drought and fire weather analysis for the North Carolina Drought Management Advisory Council.
We asked Davis to contextualize the current drought, what to expect moving forward, and how residents can best prepare themselves against these weather conditions, now and in the future.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
INDY: When did this drought officially begin?
Davis: The middle of last August is when we first started getting into a dry spell. Initially, it really wasn’t that big of a deal, because we had plenty of rain earlier in the summer last year, especially folks just west of the Triangle. Remember Tropical Storm Chantal? We got tons of rain from that system. Going into last fall, we really didn’t see any more tropical activity. I know folks don’t like tropical storms and hurricanes, but they are responsible for a decent chunk of our rainfall during that time of the year. This was the fifth fall in a row where we had gone into drought during that time of the year.
Now, folks remember the one big snow that we had at the end of January. … That snow did not really benefit us all that much. For one, this was one of those very dry powdery snows, so even though some places saw 10 or 12 inches, that amounted to less than an inch of liquid precipitation, but also because it stayed so cold for a week or so after that snow fell, the ground was frozen. None of that melting snow was able to infiltrate down into the ground. So going into the winter, we had most of the state in moderate drought conditions. That’s the lowest level of drought on the U.S. drought monitor. Unless you were a farmer who was trying to get your wheat fields planted last fall, you probably really didn’t notice the impacts of the dryness at that point.
By the end of February, we were mostly in severe drought conditions across the state. That’s the second level on the drought monitor scale. I think when most people really started to notice this drought was by late March, early April. So, when we hit that next level up, the extreme drought category, that was a big surprise for a lot of people because they didn’t realize that we were dealing with drought in the first place. Now we’re starting to see pockets of exceptional drought—that is the worst category—mainly from I-40 north to the Virginia border, including most of Durham County. That has really been one of the epicenters of dryness so far this year. It is on track for the driest year on record at the Raleigh-Durham Airport. Places like Chapel Hill are also running one of their driest ever starts to a year. And if you look at the impacts, they’re widespread now. You can’t ignore these anymore. We’re seeing lake levels that are extremely low for any time of year, but especially going into the summer. If you go out to a farm, you’ll notice that the crops are struggling. A lot of the leaves are rolling or twisting or wilting, which is a sign of both the heat stress and the moisture stress that they’re going through, and of course, most parts of the Triangle now are in some degree of water conservation or water restrictions.
You mentioned that we’ve had five falls in a row with these dry conditions. What created these drought conditions? Is it climate change? Is something about the weather patterns year over year changing that makes this less unique than it was a decade ago?
That’s a good question, and it’s a little bit tough to answer because there are so many factors that play into this. A lot of it really is just bad luck. If you look back at the past five falls, there have been similar patterns … that have caused us to go into these droughts, but I think there are some common factors here, and a lot of them relate back to climate change. We know when we have warmer temperatures, we have higher evaporation rates, and that can cause these drought conditions to emerge more quickly.
The other big change that we’ve noticed in our weather is what we started calling weather whiplash. It’s going from the wet periods to the dry ones with almost no warning, and if you think back to how this drought first emerged last summer, it was really one of those whiplash episodes. We were very wet last July, and going into August, and by the time we got to the middle of August, it was like somebody just turned the spigot off. The opposite is true as well. We’ve had droughts and dry periods that have suddenly ended by getting into an extremely wet pattern. Right now, we’re on the dry side, but it would not surprise me if this drought could start ending pretty abruptly later this year if we start getting into a more reliably wet pattern.
What are some of the lesser-known impacts of the drought? A lot of folks know they can’t wash their car at home or they’re not supposed to water their lawn, but what might they not be thinking about?
These extreme drought events that do affect our way of life are very rare. We tend to only see these maybe every 10 or 20 years. That can affect the ability to go out on the lake and take a boat ride or go fishing, as most folks are seeing now. That also affects how you can use water at your house and in your garden. We do not ask folks to conserve water or restrict their water use the vast majority of years. It’s really only when we get in these most extreme cases that we’re doing that. It’s a community effort to make sure that we’re managing the water as best as we can, saving those supplies, so that we don’t get to a point of running out of water.
Agriculture is probably the other big impact right now. It has been a really dismal year so far for the farmers. We mentioned that they were already in a dry spell late last year. If they were trying to get their cover crops, whether it’s pastures or wheat, planted, they already really didn’t have a lot of moisture late last year, and they never got that moisture over the winter either. So the pastures are in really bad shape right now. There’s a concern that those pastures and hay fields will not be fruitful enough to feed their animals for the rest of this year. Of course, all of our main staple crops in North Carolina are feeling effects right now. Corn especially—this is a time of the year that is just critical for corn to get enough moisture. So the farmers really need some rain soon to be able to salvage the crops that they’ve still got in the fields.
What can we do as individuals, or as local governments, to help mitigate these issues in the future?
Where do you use water around your household typically? When we start getting into that moderate or severe drought level, that is my main emphasis for folks. Just think about where your water is coming from, whether that’s from your local lake, whether that’s from your city, even if you have a groundwater well in your backyard, but also think about how you’re using that around your house. If I’m watering my lawn three times a week, maybe I could cut that back. How long are you leaving the water running while you’re brushing your teeth or shaving? Those are all small things, but they truly do add up if we as a community embrace that idea of conservation and working together.
What’s the outlook for the Triangle’s water supply? As climate change worsens droughts, and as population growth puts more demand on the water supply, should we expect to be living under these conditions and restrictions more frequently?
There’s no reason to believe that water restrictions will ever become an every-year sort of occurrence. It takes a prolonged period of exceptionally dry weather to get into a situation where restrictions are necessary. In other years, we tend to get plenty of rainfall, especially during the summer months, so that’s never an issue. It is possible that with warmer temperatures and increasing demands, we could hit trigger points for water restrictions sooner in the future, like if we slip into a hot, dry pattern during the summer months. But overall, our water supplies, like our large reservoirs, are designed to have plenty of capacity to last through even severe drought events.
It rained a few times in the past couple weeks and so the drought probably isn’t on people’s minds the same way it was when it was super hot and dry—did it make a difference?
The past week is a good example of the impact that rain can, and can’t, have. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers measured 0.99 inches of rain at Falls Lake over the past seven days through [June 22], but the lake itself still dropped about three-tenths of a foot, largely because of evaporation and a lack of rainfall farther upstream. But that’s at least an improvement over recent weeks, when it hadn’t rained at all in the Triangle area and Falls has dropped by half a foot or more. If we could keep it up, the sort of pattern we were in this week, where we’re getting average or slightly above average rainfall, would go a long way in helping us weather the drought this summer without it getting too much worse.
For reference, the Raleigh area is about 9 inches below its normal precipitation so far this year. If that number doesn’t get any worse by the end of the summer, and if we start regularly getting 2 inches per week … then it would take two or three months to fully eliminate that deficit. Of course, that’s still a long time, but the good news is that we would start to notice the improvements a lot sooner. The soil moisture and vegetation would perk up after a couple of events like that, and our lake levels would stabilize or start rising not long after that. In a best-case scenario, we would be in that sort of pattern by September, and by the time we go into next winter, even if we’re still chipping away at that rainfall deficit or waiting for our lakes to fully refill, this drought could feel like it’s already in our rearview mirror.
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