Drought — Owsley, Kentucky

2019-09-24 to 2019-09-30 · Owsley, Kentucky

Wider weather episode

The first severe drought since the fall of 2016 developed across portions of eastern Kentucky on September 24th, lasting through the end of the month into October.

Jackson recorded it's hottest September ever while September 2019 ended up being the driest single month in Jackson's relatively short climatological history (records date back to 1981). In fact, Jackson only saw a trace of precipitation for the entire month. London also experienced its warmest and driest September in history, while seeing September 2019 rank as its third driest overall month (records date back to 1954). An astounding 10 maximum temperature records were set at Jackson for the month while London tied or broke 9 maximum temperature records.

This late summer heat and persistent dry weather led to increasing drought intensity across much of eastern Kentucky. Large rainfall deficits of generally 5% or less of normal deprived soil moisture, thus resulting in escalating drought impacts and the onset of water issues as several ponds and creeks began to dry up.

Severe drought (D2) extended roughly from areas along Mountain Parkway, southward to the Harlan and Letcher County lines.

In Kentucky 86 percent of topsoil was short or very short of moisture by the end of September, along with 78 percent of subsoil moisture. Streams across eastern Kentucky were running near to below normal. Moisture levels in corn and soybeans were extremely low. Pasture and hay conditions deteriorated with many farmers already supplementing feed for livestock well in advance of the winter months.

Burn bans were put into effect for most counties in eastern Kentucky. According to the United States Forest Service, wildfire danger was labeled as moderate to high throughout the severe drought region. The United States Forest Service also implemented fire restrictions in the Daniel Boone National Forest.

Fire weather season resultantly began early as the fall fire season in Kentucky typically begins on October 1st. There were a couple of notable wildfires that occurred. One was in mid September in Perry County where one home was threatened as the fire spread into kudzu near it. Toward the end of the month, a wildfire broke out at Sky Bridge in the Red River Gorge, forcing Daniel Boone National Forest officials to close it for a period of time.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 848887. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.