CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Although West Virginia started the year abnormally wet, ironically it’s been the driest August and September for some parts of the Mountain State in history.
“It was a wet end to the winter, spring was fairly wet, and we began wet in the early part of the summer. July was top 5 or top 10 wettest July’s on record for many of our climate sites. But once we got out of July it was like the spigot turned off,” said Nick Webb, Meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Charleston.
The dry pattern has persisted and came with a shift in air flow out of the north which cooled things off considerably, but it also cut off moisture from the Gulf of America to our region. Webb added there really hasn’t been any tropical storm remnants from a hurricane which is typically another source of moisture during this time of year.
“There’s no real rhyme or reason for it, we’ve just been in a stagnant weather pattern over the last several weeks,” he explained.
Crop fields and pastures are brown across much of the state. Webb said the worst areas of concern for now are the far northern panhandle and central mountains including the Tygart River and Cheat River basins. Those areas have a D-3 classification meaning extreme drought. However, it’s not much better across any of northern West Virginia or the eastern panhandle. Webb added the Kanawha River Valley is also an area of great concern.
But, there is hope on the way for next week.
“Our pattern is looking like its going to be changing as we get into next week. We should see rain chances start to ramp up as an upper level system approaches from the west and lingers in the central Ohio Valley for much of next week,” he said.