Just for fun, I grabbed the month to date temperature and precipitation departures from normal for the US as of this morning, just as Hurricane Florence was coming onshore. As of this morning a good chunk of the Southeast was drier than usual for the month and most of it was also well above normal in temperature. By tomorrow morning’s map, the dry areas in most of the Carolinas will be replaced by a bulls’-eye of much above normal rainfall. With all of the clouds and rain, the temperatures where Florence is drifting should also become closer to normal. For those of us outside the rain shield of Florence, today was hot and dry under the sinking air outside the storm circulation, although I saw some spectacular cirrus clouds to the east which are probably associated with high-level moisture from Florence’s outflow. Because of where Florence is expected to go, dry parts of Alabama and most of Georgia (with the exception of the northeast) are likely to get drier in the next week and abnormally dry conditions could expand in next week’s Drought Monitor.
