The Weather Notebook: 1999 Weather Review: No Room for Drought

1999 Weather Review: No Room for Drought
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Dave Thurlow, Host

Hi, I'm Dave Thurlow from the Mount Washington Observatory and this is The weather Notebook. When does a dry spell become a drought? There's no magic moment. Different people have come up with different definitions, based on the length of time a particular place goes without a certain amount of rain. But, by whatever definition, it was clear to everyone last summer that the mid-Atlantic and Northeast U.S. were in a serious drought.

Trees started shedding their leaves in 90-degree heat, trying to save energy for next year. The grass on the Washington Mall turned brown. Also in Washington, the Potomac River ran so low you could see rocks that hadn't been visible in recent memory.

The dryness across the East actually started in the summer of 1998, but in typical drought fashion, it took a while for people other than farmers to take notice. The worst of it came in July. New York City had its driest and hottest July on record; Central Park saw less than half an inch of rain instead of it's usual four inches.

By August, the drought had eased just a smidgen in parts of the mid-Atlantic, but meanwhile, conditions got bone-dry from Tennessee to Texas. Finally, in September, a parade of tropical storms and hurricanes put an end to the drought across some of the hardest-hit areas. Hurricane's Dennis and Floyd brought several feet of rain to parts of Virginia and North Carolina that had previously only seen a few inches.

The drought was finished over the Eastern Seaboard by October, but that was little comfort to people elsewhere. Even by Halloween, the rivers in parts of the Appalachians were running at near-record lows. Just as it takes a while for a drought to get going, the earth doesn't replenish itself overnight.

Our show is written by Bob Henson and produced by Bryan Sejvar. The Weather Notebook is underwritten by Subaru, the beauty of all wheel drive with major support provided by the National Science Foundation.