Record Dry Streaks Leave Parts of the South Rainless Since September

Jon Erdman
Published: November 4,2016
Parts of the Deep South haven't seen measurable rain since September, setting new all-time record dry streaks and quickly worsening the Southeast's drought this fall.
Chief among these streaks is Alabama's most populous city.
No measurable rain (at least .01 inches) has been tallied at Birmingham's Shuttlesworth International Airport since Sept. 18, over a month and a half's time, a record-long dry streak for the city dating to 1930.

Birmingham, Alabama, Record Long Streaks Without Measurable Rain
As of Nov. 3, 2016 (Source: ACIS)

	Streak	Ending Date
1.	46 days	In progress
2.	43 days	Oct. 4, 1955
3.	36 days	Oct. 25, 1987

Nine minutes of sprinkles Friday morning, and another bout of sprinkles on Oct. 16 has been the entirety of Birmingham's rainfall so far this fall.
They're not alone. Anniston, Alabama, Meridian, Mississippi, and Rome, Georgia, each have 38-day dry streaks through Thursday, tying a new record in Anniston and topping a record in Rome.
The Weather Channel meteorologist Kathryn Prociv noted even rainfall totals in the Desert Southwest since Oct. 1 were topping those in the "Desert Southeast."

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We're calling it "The Desert Southeast" on @weatherchannel. Another telling visual for how dry the southeast has been since Oct 1. #drought

7:17 AM - 3 Nov 2016

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While not record-setting, perhaps most impressive are the over-month-long dry streaks along the Gulf Coast in Mobile, Alabama, and Pensacola, Florida, each at 37 straight days through Nov. 3.

Estimated 30-day rainfall ending at 8 a.m. EDT on November 4, 2016. Dearth of rainfall in western Georgia, Alabama and the western Florida panhandle is denoted by tan shading.
(NOAA/NWS)

Mobile failed to record any precipitation in October for only the second month in records dating to 1871. The only other month this occurred was October 1874, during which their record dry streak of 42 straight days was set.
It has been an odd turn of events for this stretch of the Gulf Coast. As of mid-April, Mobile had tallied its record wettest year-to-date.

Drought 'Rapidly' Worsens

Going over a month without rain, coupled with record-smashing heat, quickly plunged a large part of the Southeast into a worsening drought, reaching exceptional levels in parts of Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia.
Reservoir levels have plunged, triggering major water restrictions. Friday, a stage 4 extreme drought emergency was declared in the city of Birmingham.
According to The Weather Channel meteorologist Mike Seidel, over 1,200 fires have burned in Alabama since Oct. 1.

Incredibly, Hurricanes Hermine and then Matthew both soaked parts of North Florida, eastern Georgia and the Carolinas, but both delivered little or no rain to Alabama, the western Florida Panhandle and the Tennessee Valley.
Strangely, the rain shut off after that for the rest of October in most of the hurricane-soaked areas.

Any Relief Ahead?

In the upcoming week, an upper-level system that had been soaking parts of the Desert Southwest and Texas should spread rain into parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana, parts of which have also slipped into drought in recent weeks.
(MAPS: 7-Day National Rain Forecasts)
However, it's not yet clear how much, if any, of that rain will make it to the drought areas of the Tennessee Valley and Deep South that desperately need it. A potential southward-plunging cold front late in the week or weekend may fail to squeeze out any precipitation as it moves in.
The long-range outlook for the rest of November from The Weather Company, an IBM Business, doesn't paint a rosy picture for drought relief either. Despite temperatures finally trending at least a bit off the recent record highs, it may be a while before a good soaking rain quenches the Southeast drought's thirst.

Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been an incurable weather geek since a tornado narrowly missed his childhood home in Wisconsin at age 7.