Drought spreads in Virginia

In today's U.S. Drought Monitor update, Virginia's dry conditions have increased slightly since last week as we continue to lag behind in our year-to-date precipitation.

Since the beginning of the year, Abnormally Dry conditions have grown from being non-existent to affecting just more than 59% of the Commonwealth. Moderate Drought conditions now cover 11.6% of the state. Most of the damage has been done over the past few months.

In fact, most of our year-to-date rainfall deficit of 4.36" (through August 10th) is since June 1st (-3.30")! So far this August, we haven't officially made it to even a tenth of an inch of rainfall officially at Richmond International Airport, 3.63" in July (below-normal by almost an inch), and 3.03" in June (below-normal by about a half-inch). Why is this significant? Because we rely on Summertime rainfall to keep us on track for annual rainfall, and we entered the Summer lagging behind. As you can see on the chart below, July is typically our wettest month out of the entire year (usually from Summertime thunderstorm activity). Instead, we ended up short.

Now we'll need to cross our fingers for one (or both) of two things: upper storm tracks moving closer to Virginia instead of passing too far to the North (requires a dip in the jet stream farther South in our area), or tropical systems/remnants passing over the Commonwealth (which can especially happen through October). Speaking of the tropics...you can keep up with the latest activity using our Hurricane Tracker Tool by clicking here. As far as the overall outlook for rainfall, here is the latest three-month (Aug-Sept-Oct) outlook for the U.S.:

What we would like to see for the Mid-Atlantic is a good chance for an "above normal" green area over us, so that we can make up the deficit. However, even if we only get average rainfall into early Autumn, we'll still come up short for our year-to-date so far.

The plus side of the outlook is that extended, extreme heat does not appear to be on the return for us:

The James River continues to remain low in the River City. As of this posting, the James River at the Westham gauge is 3.4FT. The record low-mark for the river level there is 2.0FT from September 22, 1966. You can check the latest conditions for Richmond by clicking here.
Stay with CBS6, we'll keep you ahead of the storm.
--Meteorologist Carrie Rose

Wildfire continues to burn in southeast Virginia

A wildfire sparked by a lightning strike August 4th in the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Virginia continues to burn this week, producing widespread smoke in the region. The air has that "boggy" smell to it as the fire burns southwest of Lake Drummond near Interior Ditch Road. So far the fire has burned about 2000 acres, and is not contained yet. Here is the latest official update on the wildfire nicknamed the "Lateral West Fire:"

Fire Information Report for Lateral West
Wildland Fire Incident
Report Date: 09-AUG-11

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Burnt Area:	2,000 Acres (900% increase from yesterday)
Location:	Suffolk City County, VA (Nine miles southeast of Suffolk, VA)
Cause:	Lightning
Incident Team Type:	IMT Type 3
Team Leader:	Jeff Koenig
Containment Status:	10% contained
Expected Containment:	31-AUG-11
Fuels:	Regrowth of brush and grasses along with large amount of dead and downed fuel from the 2008 fire is currently fueling this fire. Fire will burn into pine pocosin fuels during next burning period. DeepHigh 90000.00 37

As a result of this wildfire, there is an Air Quality Alert at Code Orange for the regions being affected by the smoke in southeast Virginia (highlighted in grey on this map):

Once the cold front passes through Virginia tonight, this will shift most of the smoke southeast of the area into eastern North Carolina.
--Meteorologist Carrie Rose

Atlantic Hurricane Outlook Updated

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in coordination with the National Hurricane Center has released an update to their Atlantic tropical outlook.

With a very warm summer, ocean temperatures have increased to the third warmest on record. This along with other factors signal that a more active season is likely.

NOAA is predicting an 85% chance of an above normal hurricane season. The Atlantic hurricane season begins June 1 and peaks around September 10th. A large portion of the season is remaining.

The updated outlook has increased the forecast ranges of each category by 1 storm versus the outlook released in May. These numbers include the storms that have occurred thus far: five named storms, none of which have become hurricanes.