Our wettest rain event in more than a year soaked the state from north to south last week, quenching some drought-affected areas and potentially serving as a sign of things to come later this year.
A frontal boundary from the north slowly sagged southward across the state from last Wednesday afternoon through Saturday night. At the same time, a plume of moisture flowing in from the south, including from along the fringes of Tropical Storm Bertha, provided the fuel for this multi-day rain event.
In this post, we’ll take a closer look at the rainfall totals, their impacts on dry conditions, and reasons for both optimism and caution based on this event.
Tallying the Totals
Given the slow-moving, moisture-loaded setup, the potential for significant totals was apparent well in advance. Beginning on Monday night, forecasts predicted event-total rainfall of more than three inches across central and eastern North Carolina, and the actual totals largely met or exceeded those expectations.
On Wednesday afternoon, parts of the central Piedmont saw slow-moving showers with daily totals of 4 to 6 inches as measured by CoCoRaHS observers. High Point had 6.07 inches, which was its wettest single day since Hurricane Hazel in October 1954.
Burlington finished with a storm total of 6.50 inches, and Graham had 5.43 inches, which was the wettest event there since Tropical Storm Chantal last July. Farther west, Conover had 5.07 inches and its greatest three-day total since Hurricane Helene in September 2024.
The highest totals in the state occurred in the central Coastal Plain. Gum Neck had 7.97 inches, Fairfield had 8.86 inches in total, and a CoCoRaHS observer in Engelhard measured 9.03 inches over three days.
Across our southern tier, the bulk of the rain didn’t arrive until Friday, but it was well worth the wait. Monroe, which was off to a record dry start to the year this spring, had 4.35 inches in total, while The Nature Conservancy’s RAWS station in Brunswick County – not far from the ongoing Quarry Lane wildfire – recorded 6.01 inches.
Our major metro areas all cut into their ongoing precipitation deficits. Asheville had 2.04 inches, bringing its deficit since the start of the year down to just 0.06 inches. Raleigh nearly cut its deficit in half, with 3.21 inches in this event now putting it 3.20 inches below normal in 2026.
Charlotte’s 2.57 inches reduced its year-to-date deficit by more than two inches, now at 6.06 inches. Greensboro is also a little over six inches below normal this year after 3.55 inches from this storm. And Fayetteville trimmed its shortfall by more than three inches, with 4.06 inches in this event and its deficit now at 9.26 inches.
At the coast, Elizabeth City totaled 3.90 inches in this event, reducing its annual deficit to just 3.45 inches. And Wilmington had a storm total of 2.90 inches, putting it 10.45 inches below normal for the year to date.
Impacts and Improvements
In areas that saw the heaviest rainfall, localized flooding occurred in areas such as Hyde County, Buncombe County, and Union County. However, there were relatively few large-scale flooding issues from this event. That’s because our soils, streams, and lakes had plenty of capacity to store excess water due to the ongoing drought.
We did see a few rivers hit their flood stage, mainly in and downstream of the wettest areas. After local rainfall totals of 4 to 6 inches in Davidson County, Abbott’s Creek near Lexington crested in its minor flood stage on Friday morning, while the Neuse River at Smithfield also reached minor flood stage on Saturday.
Soil moisture levels saw a significant week-over-week improvement, going from widespread dryness to near-normal or wet conditions after the rain. Those changes also showed up in our ECONet measurements, as sites such as Siler City had wetter-than-normal soil moisture levels for the first time since last August.
Groundwater levels have shown mixed results so far. Shallower wells in Cherokee and Wayne counties responded quickly to the rain, reaching above-normal levels. However, deeper wells, like the one in Pisgah Forest, only leveled off and remain below normal.
Most critically amid the drought, our reservoirs saw big benefits from this rainfall. Lake James approached its normal summer elevation of 98 feet, and High Rock Lake came within an inch of its full pond level.
Other lakes saw modest gains: Lake Norman rose by almost a foot, but it’s still about two feet shy of its normal summer target, while Falls Lake jumped by more than two feet and is now a little over three feet below its guide curve level.
We’ll see the full impact of this rain when the next US Drought Monitor update is released on Thursday morning, but as a rule of thumb, widespread one-category improvements are likely in areas that received at least two inches of rain. In the wettest spots, this could be a rare instance where two-category improvements are warranted.
We’re less likely to see improvements in areas that had lower totals, including parts of the southern Mountains, and where streamflow levels remain below normal, such as in the Foothills and Virginia border counties.
A Step in the Right Direction
This event lets us breathe a small sigh of relief. After all, during our climatological hottest time of year, instead of roasting, it was raining, and some areas undid several months’ worth of deficits and declining lake levels in one fell swoop.
Perhaps the best news is that the heaviest rain fell where it was needed most, including directly over Falls Lake, in southern Piedmont areas like Monroe that recently slipped back into Extreme Drought (D3), and on wildfires that are still burning at the coast.
While it’s premature to attribute this rain to the developing El Niño – this wasn’t the sort of jet stream-carried storm system from the south that we expect in that pattern – it may offer a preview of the sort of widespread soakings we’ll see more of later in the year, once El Niño and its atmospheric impacts have strengthened further.
We also know this drought isn’t over just yet, as most of the state remains in long-term rainfall deficits of more than seven inches dating back to last August, with entrenched impacts such as lake and groundwater levels that will take longer to fully recover.
We’re barely halfway through the summer, and another warm and dry month – as the Climate Prediction Center is hinting at for August – could easily undo a lot of our recent progress.
Plus, we’re still expecting a quiet hurricane season, and there is evidence that El Niño is already having an impact in the Atlantic basin. That could mean lower chances of seeing tropical rainfall locally, which eastern areas count on for a portion of their warm-season rainfall.
The bottom line is that this was a significant soaking rain, and we like the chances of seeing similar events by the fall. Perhaps we’ll even look back on this as the turning point in this ongoing drought – but we won’t know for sure until the lakes have filled, the deficits are depleted, and this drought is done and dusted.
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