Aaahhh! ... blessed rain falls on parched Cherokee County, Upstate
By TIM GULLA Ledger Staff Writer tim@gaffneyledger.com

Mother Nature decided to let Cherokee County and the Upstate end 2007 with some desperately needed rainfall but she wasn't necessarily magnanimous with her gift.

A weather watcher in Cherokee Creek recorded 1.32 inches in his rain gauge from Saturday night to Sunday afternoon, while the National Weather Service in Greer said about 1.2 inches of rain fell on the Greenville region as of 4 p.m. Sunday.

But even though water seemed to be everywhere, NWS Meteorologist Bryan McAvoy said drought conditions still persist and that the weekend rainfall was not enough to get the region back to normal for the year.

The NWS weather monitoring station in Greenville recorded roughly 5 inches of rain for December while the NWS station at the Charlotte/Douglas International Airport recorded roughly four inches for the month.

While McAvoy didn't have specific information on Gaffney rainfall totals, he said the Greenville region was still about 19 inches short of normal yearly precipitation while the Charlotte region was slightly more than 15 inches below normal.

Before the weekend rainfall was tallied, Cherokee County had been down almost 21 inches of rain for the year as of last Friday morning.

"If this (weekend weather) pattern were to continue, it would certainly help a lot," McAvoy said. "One wet month isn't enough to knock us out of a drought."

However, long range forecasts don't necessarily bode well for the region.

"The signals indicate we will remain in a dry pattern," McAvoy said. "It's been wet for a few weeks, but it still appears we'll stay dryer than normal through the winter and the early part of the spring."

The weekend rain was prompted by the interaction of a cold front and moisture coming in from the Atlantic.

No major problems were reported as a result of the weekend rains. Streams and rivers were able to accommodate the rainfall, which averaged just a tenth of an inch per hour. It would take prolonged rain in excess of a half-inch per hour to cause flooding concerns, McAvoy said.