CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Nearly 2 1/2 inches of rain fell in the Albemarle County and Charlottesville area between Friday and Wednesday morning, according to Accuweather senior meteorologist Tyler Roys, as the U.S. Drought Monitor cast an “extreme drought” description over a larger portion of the region.
The drought monitor now shows the entirety of Albemarle County in “extreme drought” after being just the southern tip the couple of weeks before.
“You think that (2 1/2 inches of rain) should be good, and it is, but it’s a short-term relief,” Roys told Cville Right Now. “The drought has kind of been building for several months.”
The map includes all of Louisa and nearly all of Orange County as “extreme,” and the southern tip of Greene to join all of Fluvanna, Nelson, and Buckingham counties that were “extreme” before.
Looking back at the data, Roys noted between Jan. 1 and May 20, the day before it started to rain, 6.12 inches of rain had fallen on the area.
Typically, he said, the area should have nearly 17 inches of rain fallen over that time period.
The recent rain puts the total at 8.59 inches bringing the area closer to half the average rainfall.
“This is all good news for the crops to really get their roots into the ground, and as we go through the next five-to-seven days, it’s good that we’re keeping heat at bay,” Roys said. “So we’re not talking 90s, near 100, any of that. We’re talking somewhere low 80s into the 70s and really the last chance of rain around ends Wednesday, then we go back to a much drier pattern for a while.”
Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority has continued seeing reservoir levels at capacity, despite the drought monitor data, but the drought has had an agricultural impact with summer crops newly planted in the ground.
There are two way Roys said the area can get right with rainfall amounts.
The preferable way is several days of steady rain where soils can soak the moisture up, or a tropical system which dumps a lot of rain over a day or two, but also causes flooding as well.
Roys said as summer arrives, the former scenario becomes less likely than the latter.
He said summer thunderstorms help, but they are too isolated to do anything long-term especially as evaporation rates increase in the hot summer months.
