WOAY-TV (Oak Hill, WV): Historical trends show the Greenbrier Valley drought will not be ending anytime soon.
The Greenbrier Valley is in an extreme drought, which is one category away from the highest level drought. The grass is dried up, leaves are changing color and the river levels are down significantly. Let’s put this drought into a historical perspective.
In the 24-year span the Drought Monitor has been in existence, the Greenbrier Valley has never been in an extreme drought.
The only drought that even comes close was a 7-month severe drought that started in November of 2001 and ended in May of 2002. It was the 14th driest fall on record with 3.89 inches of rain. The Atlantic basin was pretty quiet, with only 15 named storms. Only one of those storms, Barry, brought about a half an inch of rain to the Greenbrier Valley on August 12th.
Now, this year we’ve had the 12th driest summer on record and the 22nd warmest summer on record, and that contributed to the quick onset of the current drought.
The drought is so bad that farmers require supplemental feeding to maintain their livestock. They’re being forced to limit water use and crop yields are down significantly this summer in Greenbrier County. So, based on the historical perspective of droughts in Greenbrier County, it’ll take at least until the middle of winter to completely remove the rainfall deficit that has been growing since the early part of the summer.
Of course, we will continue to follow the drought trends going forward through the rest of the fall into the winter season and let you know if there are any appreciable rain events that could put us out of our misery.
