A dearth of April showers and less than half an inch of total recorded precipitation in June has made Pitt County a poster child for ongoing statewide drought conditions, an expert said.
Rainfall totals in Pitt County from January-June are almost 7.82 inches below the norm, according to data provided by Corey Davis, assistant state climatologist for the North Carolina State Climate Office. He said that North Carolina had a mostly wet winter but that precipitation was largely front-loaded in December and early January.
“Late January and February were drier, especially for the eastern half of the state,” Davis said. “Since then, we have effectively alternated each month: our 28th-wettest March, our 13th-driest April, our 12th-wettest May, and while the official numbers aren’t yet available, probably one of our top 10 driest Junes.”
Davis said until June the state’s back-and-forth precipitation pattern effectively balanced itself out, but Greenville and the surrounding area are the exception.
Here, only March was wetter than average, but not by much. Over 106 years of accumulated data, the 4.62 inches of rainfall was less than an inch higher than the average. He said this week the U.S. Drought Monitor upgraded conditions to severe drought in the central Coastal Plain, centered on Greenville.
April was Greenville’s 10th-driest on record and June the third-driest on record with only .45 inches of precipitation, 4.14 inches below the norm. Davis said there was a 23-day stretch without rain from June 7-July 1, the largest gap since a 26-day stretch in 2000. In all, June had three days with measurable rain, Davis said.
January, February and May saw over half an inch lower precipitation than average. June has also been the sixth hottest on record in Greenville, the warmest since 2015, Davis added.
{p class=”western” align=”left”}”While most of the Coastal Plain is maybe 3 to 5 inches below normal, there is a bullseye around Greenville that’s closer to 9 inches below normal,” Davis said.
{p class=”western” align=”left”}That makes the first half of 2024 the fifth-driest year on record. The last year that started drier was 1986, which had 14.71 inches from January to June, Davis said.
Davis said that the Simpson groundwater well in Pitt County spent most of April and May with groundwater levels below its historical median. If conditions continue there might be calls to conserve water.
“While there are no water restrictions in place at the moment, a few more weeks of dry weather and declining groundwater levels could see at least voluntary conservation encouraged for water customers in Pitt County or surrounding areas,” Davis said.
On Tuesday U.S. Rep. Don Davis, the Democrat who represents North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, called for an emergency declaration during a joint press conference at Varnell Farms in Rocky Mount.
“Every county in eastern North Carolina is currently grappling with the drought,” Don Davis said. “We must take immediate action to offer unwavering support to our farmers and rural communities experiencing losses from this extreme weather event.”
According to the USDA, the Secretary of Agriculture is authorized to designate counties as disaster areas to make emergency loans available to producers suffering losses in those counties and bordering ones.
A declaration would unlock state and federal funds designated for drought relief that could be used to financially support affected communities, farmers and businesses. It would also open the door for farmers to access crop insurance payouts, emergency loans and financial aid for lost crops and livestock.
Jonathan Smith, agriculture extension agent at the Pitt County Center for the N.C. Cooperative Extension, said the impact of an emergency declaration on farmers would depend on their crop. He said soybeans are faring better after rain earlier this week. More rain also would see tobacco through, he predicted.
Corn was at its most sensitive stage during the last two weeks of June when there was no rain, which he said “devastated” crops.
Since a pesticide used on corn makes it impossible to grow soybeans in the same area, Smith said that corn farmers will have to either plant more corn or sorghum, both of which require sufficient rain to grow.
Right now Smith said corn is projected to see a $10 million loss. Most of the state’s corn crop is used as animal feed, and Smith predicted if cattle, poultry and swine farmers need to spend more on their feed then meat prices could eventually rise.
“The two most sensitive crops are corn and tobacco, and that’s two of our powerhouses here in Pitt,” Smith said. “It has been dry and the rain that we have had has not moving far enough to cover the whole county. Pitt’s a large county but the weather we’ve had has not been sufficient.
“I’d like to say that Pitt’s in a crisis right now, we’re in a crisis stage.”
Smith said only 3% of the state’s agricultural land is irrigated, which means the vast majority of farmers rely solely on rainfall. Too much of that could be worse than drought, he warned.
“Ninety-seven percent of growers in North Carolina, this drought is really going to cripple them if we don’t get more rain,” Smith said. “It hangs on that ‘if.’
“Come tomorrow, I’ve seen it, we can go from the worst drought possible to flooding in three weeks. It goes either way. Dry weather is scary, but crops have a better chance coming out of a drought than they do being drowned.”
Smith also asked farmers to be mindful of their mental health. “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” he said. “You can’t know the weather and you do what you think’s best. That’s all you can do at the end of the day.”
While July’s precipitation outlook is better than June’s, Corey Davis said it will consist mainly of pop-up showers and thunderstorms. He said that earlier in the week such events brought about 2 inches of rain near Rocky Mount but only .29 inches to Greenville.
He said a single rain event is unlikely to be a “drought buster.” Even if a tropical system brought 6-8 inches of rain he said that most of that moisture would turn into runoff rather than being absorbed into the ground.
“In the short term, we’ll hope that July brings a nice bounce-back in rainfall just like we’ve seen earlier in the year when we’ve come out of a dry month,” Davis said. “In the longer term, we’ll hope that any tropical or other weather systems bring us the rain we want, without the hazards we don’t.”
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