Climate Summary

Temperature and Precipitation by climate division
Departures from Normal for February 2010 - based on preliminary data.

February 2010 was the coldest February in North Carolina in over 30 years. Average monthly statewide temperature was more than 6 degrees F below normal – conditions not seen since 1979. Interestingly, minimum temperatures were not very unusual, with monthly average minimums typically ranking 10-20 coldest. However, nearly every location in North Carolina had average maximum temperatures for February ranked in the top 3 coldest. All of western NC reported minimum temperatures as the #1 or #2 coldest on record. Some locations, such as Asheville, reported the coldest average maximum temperature since records began 108 years ago. Statewide, average temperatures for February 2010 ranked as the 11th coldest since 1895.

For both Asheville (Buncombe Co.) and Jefferson (Ashe Co.), this past winter December 2009 –February 2010 was the coldest on record.

Precipitation in February 2010 was generally near normal, which is a nice break from the record-setting precipitation from the previous months. Despite only “normal” precipitation in February, many locations across the state will still end up with winter total precipitation ranking in the top 10. And most locations in western NC are experiencing snowfall amounts not experienced in 30 years.

Impacts to Water Resources

The drought conditions from recent year seem like a distant memory to many. Wet conditions continue to ensure reservoirs are full and groundwater is recharging. Drought conditions are not likely to be of any concern until late spring or early summer if NC again experiences dry weather.

Precipitation for February 2010
Based on estimates from NWS Radar
Data courtesy NWS/NCEP

Precipitation for February 2010: Percent of Normal
Based on estimates from NWS Radar
Data courtesy NWS/NCEP

New and Updated SCO Products

The Agriculture section of the SCO website has recently been revamped to incorporate links to other resources that address the climate/agriculture relationship, as well as to the various decision support tools SCO has been developing over the years for the agriculture community:

• *NEW* AgroClimate — The Southeast Climate Consortium’s interactive website with climate, agriculture, and forestry information that allows users to assess resource management options with respect to probable outcomes under forecasted climate conditions.
• *NEW* Cucurbit downy mildew — The SCO is supporting NCSU's national cucurbit downy mildew forecast group with new mapping and alert tools.
• Irrigation water management for turfgrass — The Turfgrass Itrrigation Management System was developed to help anyone with a lawn to use water efficiently.
• *NEW* Growing degree day accumulations for the southeastern US — Interactive maps that plot user-defined growing degree day accumulations across the southeast. This new tool allows users to view accumulations for various weather stations across the Southeast after inputting a given date range and base temperature. This information is displayed spatially so that users can quickly compare GDD accumulations for their specific location to those over their entire region.
• *NEW* Various tools for small fruits and berries — The blueberry chill and heat model pages have recently been updated so that users can track chill/heat unit accumulations for stations in all Southeastern states, and can view these accumulations for past seasons. We're also working with Dr. Barclay Poling to implement an enhanced decision support system for strawberries.
• Advisories for peanut leaf spot and Sclerotinia blight — For several years the SCO has been supporting Dr. Barbara Shew's peanut disease advisories. We'll continue this program again in 2010.
• *NEW* Calculated reference crop evapotranspiration — Maps and graphs of reference ET for user-defined periods or long-term climatologies for locations across the southeastern US.