Happily, we are not in a drought in most of the Southeast right now, but sooner or later we will go into another one? Will it be this year? Too early to say. But here’s some new research that looks at the impacts of tropical storm rainfall on droughts in the eastern half of the United States. It shows that agricultural drought along the East Coast is most affected by rainfall from tropical storms, and areas along the Gulf Coast and in Florida are less affected. We know that when we don’t have tropical rainfall in the summer months, drought is more likely to start or get worse quickly, so this is an interesting study that I will be looking at more when I have time. You can read the description at https://cpo.noaa.gov/News/News-Article/ArtMID/6226/ArticleID/2462/Do-Tropical-Storms-Impact-Drought-in-The-US or find the full scientific study at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021EF002417.
