Tropical Rains Bring Relief to Drought-Laden Upstate

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With the remnants of Tropical Storm Fay moving eastward into the Upstate of South Carolina and the mountains of North Carolina, tropical rains have brought much-needed relief to the drought-stricken areas of the Southeast.

The Upstate of South Carolina has received an average of well over an inch of rainfall in the last 24 hours. The mountains of North Carolina have also received significant rainfall, with some areas experiencing flooding.

A mudslide caused by the rain forced the closing of a restaurant in the mountain resort area of Chimney Rock/Lake Lure. As the Fall tourist season gets underway in a few short weeks, the area will be teeming with customers. Owners of the restaurant are confident that they can have repairs completed before that time.

The Greenville-Spartanburg area of South Carolina, and the Asheville-Hendersonville area of North Carolina are expecting continued moderate to heavy rainfall Tuesday night and Wednesday.

An 'extreme drought' has engulf the entirety of the region since January of this year. Most reporting stations are anywhere from 10 to 15 inches below normal rainfall.

While the remnants of Tropical Storm Fay may not end the drought, the few inches of rain expected from the system will certainly bring welcomed relief to the area and take at least some of the pressure off of local water districts that have implemented either voluntary or mandatory water restrictions.

UPDATE! Watches and warnings for the Western Carolinas can be found here:
Weather Underground--Southeastern U.S.

Tropical Storm Forms Off of South Carolina Coast

Tropical Storm Cristobal has formed off of the South Carolina coast with maximum sustained winds of 45 miles per hour.

The North Carolina port city of Wilmington set a record rainfall total today with just under 3 inches in a 24-hour period.

Cristobal is located approximately 125 miles east of Charleston, South Carolina moving northward. Bands of heavy rains and thunderstorms are expected in the South Carolina regions surrounding Myrtle Beach and the North Carolina regions surrounding Wilmington.

For complete information, including warnings, tracking, satellite images, radar, winds, and rainfall projections, go to Weather Underground.

If They Can't Predict Hurricanes, How Can They Predict Climate?

For two years in a row, hurricane forecasters have totally missed the mark on predicting the number of storms and their intensity. In fact, this year is on the mark toward becoming the most inactive hurricane season in 30 years.

The last time the Atlantic basin was this quiet was in 1977.

Of course, we still have a month to go in this year's hurricane season. Things could always change, but realistically such a thing is highly unlikely this late in the year.

In addition, have you noticed that the National Hurricane Center has begun naming storms that do not become hurricanes? Time was that only hurricanes were named. Thus, using today's methodology the number of named storms is higher than normal. This is due to the number of tropical storms that did not reach hurricane strength.

According to Algore, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and others in the political movement known as 'the environmentalist movement,' the last two years should have been two of the most active hurricane seasons on record, due to the effects of 'global warming.'

The standard wisdom of the 'politically correct' environmentalists is that global warming would result in more hurricanes with higher intensity. Of course, for the past two years that prediction has totally missed the mark.

The result has been a devastating drought that has brought severe water shortages in the southeastern and southern states.

The obvious question that arises to the surface in the midst of these embarrassing erroneous predictions is, if forecasters can't accurately predict a hurricane season a couple of months prior to June, then how can they be trusted to predict the future climate of the planet years or decades from now?

One more nail in the coffin of the environmental alarmists is the latest NASA satellite imagery from space, which shows that the ozone hole over Antarctica has almost returned to normal. This means that the planet has been basically healing itself of the destructive effects of ozone over the Antarctic region.

For a full comparative analysis of hurricane predictions and the actual storms that occurred over the last few years, click here:
http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/