Drought — Monroe, West Virginia

2019-10-01 to 2019-10-22 · Monroe, West Virginia

Event narrative

Severe drought (D2) was depicted across nearly all of Monroe County on the U.S. Drought Monitor from October 1st to October 22nd. An extremely dry and very warm September led to the worsening conditions in the county. The COOP site at Greenville 1 SE (GRVW2) had only 0.53 inches of rain in September. Agricultural damages were severe, with estimated losses per the USDA Farm Service Agency at $920,000 from pastures and $1.4 million from hay losses.

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 860445. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.