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Just a few weeks ago WRAL was going on and on about the "severe risk of drought" we were into for 2016. The way they calculate these numbers is ridiculous, and I can assure you we are nowhere near drought levels right now, in central NC. We just had one of the wettest winters in recent years. But the numbers reset on January 1st....although the ground water and lake levels do not. But January through May in NC, has been anything but resembling of a drought.
Even several years ago when the lakes were "drying up", I had rain quite often at my house, and friends and coworkers who lived in southern Wake County went weeks without any. And let's not confuse "lakes drying up" with "lakes being drained". There's a huge difference.
The Triangle, and droughts seem to follow right along with an old tale about a boy who cried wolf. And the local sensationalism brokers don't help when they start slinging their nonsense about "severe risk of drought" talk when it's rained 3-4 days a week for months straight. People eventually laugh, and ignore it.
I remember WRAL showing a graphic that we were either in the abnormally dry or almost in the abnormally dry range (yellow on their map). It didn't align with what I was seeing locally, given the relative cool and wet start to the year.
I remember during one of the drought years, the propaganda had started because we were below normal rainfall the first 3 months of the year. But they failed to report that we had one of the wettest autumn's ever, so if you looked at the prior 12 months, we were actually comfortably above normal.
I believe the water management people learned their lesson after the 1st drought of the 00's as they became more conservative in draining the lakes during water shortages.
Last edited by cheapdad00; 06-07-2016 at 10:17 PM..
Wow, thanks bluecomet! In the exactly one year I've lived here, the rainfall has been 38% higher than normal. I had the dog fence installed in October, and for a good percentage of the time since, the back yard has been a mudfield. The neighbors keep telling me that this isn't normal, and the data show that too.
We're above normal in rainfall totals this year here in the Triangle, but in the mountains some areas there are in a moderate drought. If one of these tropical storms comes in and dumps a load they may recover quickly, but right now they're abnormally dry. You can check that out at the national weather service's drought monitoring website: Climate Prediction Center
I think a lot of people who never spend time on Falls lake don't realize how shallow it is. Those photos taken in 2007, from Old Weaver Trail, are of some of the shallowest parts of the lake. And the tv crews always filmed the northwest portion of the lake during the 2007 drought. That part of the lake between Old Weaver and I-85 is very shallow, dangerously so for boats sometimes. Right now, the water is high, and it's not so bad. But there are places up on the NW end of the lake where it "looks" vast and deep, but in reality is only a few feet deep. Once you venture beyond the old creek/river channel, the water my only be 3-9' in a lot of places west of hwy 50.
I know it didn't seem to rain as much back during the 2007 drought, but a part of the problem back then can also be attributed to the Army Corpse of Engineers, who improperly controlled levels and drained too much water that spring.
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