{"id":774782,"date":"2026-05-05T11:32:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T11:32:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/774782\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T11:32:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T11:32:28","slug":"ask-the-meteorologist-how-does-our-current-drought-compare-to-the-2007-2008-drought-wral-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/774782\/","title":{"rendered":"Ask the Meteorologist: How does our current drought compare to the 2007-2008 drought? :: WRAL.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’ve lived here long enough, you remember the historic drought of 2007 and 2008<\/a>. <\/p>\n

It cost North Carolina’s agriculture industry<\/a> more than half-a-billion dollars in damages. Nearly 80% of water customers faced restrictions, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n

How does our current drought compare?<\/p>\n

At the moment, it doesn’t. And we hope that continues.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2007-2008 drought vs. now<\/p>\n

There are significant differences between the drought of record and what we’re currently experiencing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What we’re seeing now has been a slow burn – months in the making. <\/p>\n

Rainfall deficits extend back to September, when it seemed as though the faucet was just shut off.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Since September 1, Raleigh is more than 12 inches behind on rainfall.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the drought of 2007-2008, it happened quickly. <\/p>\n

The rapid onset of the drought was brought on by an exceptionally hot, dry summer. <\/p>\n

Evaporation rates in the summer are much higher, which led to long-lasting burn bans, devastating agricultural impacts and widespread water restrictions.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\/<\/p>\n

The majority of North Carolina was in an exceptional drought – the highest level on the drought monitor. <\/p>\n

During an exceptional drought, you typically see “widespread crop\/pasture losses, shortages of water in reservoirs, streams, and wells creating water emergencies.”<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Currently, 1% of North Carolina is in an exceptional drought, while 55% is in an extreme drought (see below).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\/<\/p>\n

During an extreme drought, you start to see “major crop\/pasture losses [and] widespread water shortages or restrictions.”<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWhat’s driving the current drought?<\/p>\n

There are two main drivers behind our current months-long deficit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\/<\/p>\n

1. La Ni\u00f1a during the winter.<\/b> While we saw a couple winter weather events, the overall liquid precipitation was lacking. La Ni\u00f1a made for a less-active storm track in the Eastern U.S., contributing to a winter deficit of nearly three inches (of liquid precipitation equivalent).<\/p>\n

2. Persistent high pressure.<\/b> So far this spring, high pressure has been a dominant feature over\/near the East Coast. This has essentially blocked any beneficial storm system from reaching here, leaving us void of anything substantial.<\/p>\n

This has landed more than half the state in an extreme drought<\/a>, which only happens once every 20 to 50 years.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\/<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWhere do we go from here?<\/p>\n

We at least have some rain chances in the immediate future<\/a>. <\/p>\n

We need 10 to 15 inches of rain within four weeks to completely eliminate the drought. The thing is…you don’t want that all at once.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\/<\/p>\n

A burn ban has been lifted for 81 of North Carolina’s 100 counties.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

In the drought of 2007-2008, there was a ban from August 21 to September 18 that was then reinstated in mid-October.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Several localities have issued water restrictions<\/a> too.<\/p>\n

We hope to chip away at this drought with several rain chances between now and the summer. We root against destructive tropical systems.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Preliminary forecasts indicate average activity in the Atlantic<\/a> this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you’ve lived here long enough, you remember the historic drought of 2007 and 2008. It cost North…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":774783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[23],"tags":[311183,6772,746,519,159,67,132,68,5609],"class_list":["post-774782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ask-the-meteorologist","tag-drought","tag-environment","tag-north-carolina","tag-science","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-wildfires"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116521754153707793","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=774782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}