In the tristate region around Chattanooga, 2016’s weather beatdown seemed only to lack a plague of locusts or frogs to mark a higher historic milestone for weather-related disasters, but recent rains are finally relieving dry conditions across the South.
Last year, the Chattanooga area experienced extreme drought conditions that began in the spring and continued into fall, sparking deadly wildfires. The fires finally were dampened by a storm that spawned a deadly tornado outbreak in November that killed seven people in the region – three in Jackson County, Ala., and four in Tennessee, with two deaths in Polk County and two in Meigs County.
The National Weather Service’s report on the 2016 drought also noted other impacts of the drought, such as foundation damage to homes and businesses and cracks in roads throughout the South.
But widespread recent rains have drowned out the worst of the drought in most areas, experts report.
On Jan. 17, the U.S. Drought Monitor map showed the giant red blotch of “extreme drought conditions” still stretched from the Mississippi-Alabama state line just over the southern state border in Southeast Tennessee and beyond to the extreme western edges of the Carolinas.
But the latest report released Thursday shows widespread rains finally reduced those conditions to severe and moderate drought status.
That’s still pretty dry, though.
More than half of Tennessee is still abnormally dry or in a moderate drought with Bradley, Hamilton, McMinn, Monroe and Polk counties still experiencing severe drought. About three-fourths of Alabama has similar conditions along with the northern half of Georgia, and both those states still had areas of extreme drought in spite of the rain.
In Alabama, parts of Bibb, the southern edge of Jefferson, Shelby, St. Clair, Tuscaloosa and the southern edge of Jefferson counties are still suffering extreme drought conditions, according to this week’s drought monitor report.
In Georgia, all of Fannin, Gilmer and Union counties remained in the extreme category, along with parts of Habersham, Rabun, Towns and White counties, and the easternmost edge of Murray County.
The Associated Press in Atlanta reported last week that wet weather systems are gradually relieving dry conditions across the Deep South, leaving only a handful of counties in Alabama and Georgia with extreme drought conditions.
Rain drenched a large part of an area that has been abnormally dry, from northern Louisiana to the Carolinas and Virginia. Parts of southeast Oklahoma and western Arkansas also still are experiencing extreme drought.
The drought is approaching the one-year mark. Abnormally dry conditions began showing up in March 2016 in parts of the South and intensified through the spring, summer and fall. Despite the recent heavy rains, drier-than-normal weather is expected to dominate most of the nation through Monday, forecasters project.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Contact staff writer Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569.