Dry weather persists in Chattanooga area

Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / The grass, in this East Brainerd yard, is almost as dry as the fallen tulip poplar leaves that carpet the surface Thursday. Hamilton County is dry and some surrounding counties are in moderate drought, according to Tennessee’s state climatologist Andrew Joyner. Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / The grass, in this East Brainerd yard, is almost as dry as the fallen tulip poplar leaves that carpet the surface Thursday. Hamilton County is dry and some surrounding counties are in moderate drought, according to Tennessee’s state climatologist Andrew Joyner.

By Ben Benton October 7, 2022 8 min read

A relatively dry September and — so far — rainless October with only a chance of precipitation in sight could rouse memories of the drought of 2016, when wildfires plagued Southeast Tennessee and North Georgia and the smoke some days lay like a blanket over Chattanooga.

But since the first eight months of 2022 were quite wet — bringing Chattanooga’s rain tally to 44.66 inches so far this year — East Tennessee is still above its yearly norm, even if the ground in the Chattanooga region is increasingly cracked and parched. The days without rain are beginning to show on the U.S. Drought Monitor as a large swath where Southeast Tennessee is dry as a chip, and that area is expected to expand. Annual rainfall in Chattanooga averages 55 inches.

For Chattanooga, Saturday marks the 18th day in a row without rain.

“There were no areas of improvement across the whole state, and you have a pretty decent area that was already abnormally dry in Southeast Tennessee, and now you’ve got an area that’s (experiencing) moderate drought in northern McMinn County and Monroe County and a little bit in Loudon County,” Tennessee State Climatologist Andrew Joyner said Thursday by phone.