Chattanooga area nearly drought-free after recent rains

Georgia mountains driest in the nation

Cows stir up dust on dry ground as they run on James Burton's farm on Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2016, in LaFayette, Ga. As the region's drought has worsened, Burton says he has used all of his stores of hay to feed his cattle and is now having to buy hay to keep his herd fed.
Cows stir up dust on dry ground as they run on James Burton's farm on Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2016, in LaFayette, Ga. As the region's drought has worsened, Burton says he has used all of his stores of hay to feed his cattle and is now having to buy hay to keep his herd fed.

In Tennessee, the drought is quenched. For now.

Parts of Georgia, meanwhile, are the driest spots in the country.

Even though office, shop and break room conversations in recent days have included tales of flooded basements, leaky roofs, tipping trees and overflowing gutters, recent rains have been good news for most people in the Chattanooga region.

"The only area of extreme drought anywhere in the country is North Georgia right now. It's the driest part of the United States," WRCB Channel 3 chief meteorologist Paul Barys said Thursday. About half the Chattanooga region is now free of drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor update.

"We just got more rain north and west," Barys said. "So Chattanooga finally is not in the drought area. But Dalton, [and the] southern half of Whitfield [County] is still in moderate drought all the way to Murphy [N.C.]"

Barys said the worst-hit Georgia counties never recovered from extreme drought and exceptional drought conditions experienced last year.

Tennessee is finally free of extreme drought and only Bradley, Polk, Monroe, Blount and Sevier counties have abnormally dry conditions hanging on, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor update on Thursday. A fringe of moderate drought clings to the extreme eastern edges of Monroe and Polk.

In Alabama, Jackson and DeKalb counties are practically free of any dry areas at all, though most of the rest of the state is still abnormally dry or in moderate drought further south.

But while Georgia near Chattanooga is wetter than it was, extreme drought conditions persist in several counties from Jasper in Pickens County to the Blue Ridge Mountains, and most of the rest of the state to the south is experiencing abnormally dry to severe drought.

Across the South, heavy rains brought flooding to counties that have been dry for almost a year and in some places longer. Drought monitor officials state in the report issued Thursday that the Southeast generally got 2 to 8 inches of rain.

But National Weather Service officials say there is no promise of above-average rainfall going into summer.

Meteorologist Dan Dixon, at the weather service office in Huntsville, Ala., said Thursday that rain chances over the next three months in the tristate area are a flip of a coin.

The outlook is "equal chances of above and below normal rainfall," Dixon said. "That's because there's not really a strong climatological signal (like an El Niño or La Niña) that would indicate very wet or very dry conditions."

And the outlook for May's temperatures looks a little like it did last year; higher than normal, he said.

The summertime weather pattern already has begun with pop-up thundershowers like those that briefly soaked parts of the dry Blue Ridge Mountains on Thursday afternoon, Dixon said.

The region still needs large weather systems that bring prolonged rain to truly bring relief, he said.

Contact staff writer Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569.

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