Drought — Eastern Greenbrier, West Virginia

2019-10-01 to 2019-10-22 · Eastern Greenbrier, West Virginia

Event narrative

Severe drought (D2) was shown across most of northeast Greenbrier County on the U.S. Drought Monitor from October 1 to October 22nd. Impacts were primarily agricultural and included pasture losses and reduced hay cuttings. The NWS COOP site at Lewisburg 3N (LWBW2) in Greenbrier County recorded a mere 0.08 inches of rain in September. This was the driest September and 2nd driest of any month on record at this station with nearly complete data back to 1900. The previous record was 0.04 inches in October, 2000.

Wider weather episode

All four counties in southeast West Virginia covered by the NWS office in Blacksburg entered the severe drought classification (D2 on a scale from D0 to D4) on the October 1st issuance of the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor and remained there for the next three weeks (until issuance of October 22nd). Dry conditions actually began as far back as July and August in some areas but the rainfall was very uneven. It was a very dry and hot September that really caused a rapid deterioration in the drought situation in much of West Virginia. Several NWS COOP sites had all-time driest Septembers or even the driest of any month. The dry conditions were aggravated by an early October heat wave with numerous record or near-record highs occurred from October 1st through 4th.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 859917. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.