Burke staying out of hot water where drought is concerned

Three straight days of searing temperatures last week baked the red-clay soil of Burke County with the intensity of a brick kiln during the year’s first true heat wave.

The unseasonably hot weather earlier in the week — 10 to 15 degrees above normal — prompted the National Weather Service in Greenville, S.C., to issue a heat advisory, which ended at 8 p.m. Wednesday. Duke Energy released a statement Monday that read, in part: “Successive days of extreme temperatures are driving unusually high energy demand in our area and available power reserves are currently very limited.”

Next week’s highs are expected to dip slightly into the upper 80s and low 90s — still above average for this time of year.

But despite the sweltering stretch, we’re largely safe from drought for the foreseeable future, according to those who study the weather.

A wetter-than-average two-month stretch between April 21 and June 21 has given Burke a cushion that should carry us through the hot spell, especially since we’re due for a spate of afternoon thunderstorms in the forecast.

Corey Davis, assistant climatologist at the State Climate Office in Raleigh, said Morganton’s rainfall for that same span was 3.41 inches above normal and represented the county’s 15th wettest span on record for those two months at 12.26 inches of precipitation.

The last such stretch in the same time period came in 2020, when we saw 12.80 inches. The wettest ever was 2013, when a whopping 20.96 inches fell.

“That not only erased the ongoing drought from the spring, but it also gave us a bit of surplus moisture, especially in our soils and streams,” Davis said. “That buffer won’t last forever, and we’ll definitely burn through it faster during these hot days, but it should save us from immediately sliding back into drought conditions.”

Chris White of Foothills Action Network, a popular local online weather service, agreed with Davis’s assessment.

“I think overall, we’re going to be OK, just because we’ve had such a surplus of rainfall this spring and into the early meteorological summer,” White said.

White warned of the possibility of flash drought — rapid onset drought caused by a period of hot, dry weather — later in the summer, but doesn’t see that happening anytime soon.

“It’s important to note that when you get these high-heat conditions, that heat pulls the moisture right out of the ground, and we can get into what we call a flash drought,” White said. “I don’t see that happening, because over the next 10 days, most areas will see between a half and one inch of liquid from thunderstorms.”

Last week marked the first time since July 2016 that Burke had seen three consecutive days of 95 degrees or higher.

A high-pressure system stalled on top of the area was the culprit, Davis explained.

“Along with increasing the amount of air on top of us, which is like throwing blankets over us to bump up our temperatures, high pressure acts like a roadblock for any rain-making weather systems and the sinking air beneath the high counteracts the rising motion we need for clouds and thunderstorms to develop,” Davis said. “Plus, when a high-pressure system is centered right over us like this, we barely get any wind, so there’s very little relief from the heat outdoors.”

For most of the month, June looked like its usual self. Prior to last week, it was the 38th warmest June since record keeping began 124 years ago.

But that changed quickly last week. Davis said the month would likely end up being Burke’s hottest June since 2018, which ranked as the 13th hottest in recorded history.

Summer has begun its annual siege of Burke County, but — for now, anyway — there are enough water resources to resist the onslaught of drought.