Climate Summary

Temperature and Precipitation by climate division
Departures from Normal for March 2011
Based on Preliminary Data

March 2011 in North Carolina was overall near normal for most of the state. Western areas experienced above-normal precipitation, while central and eastern NC experienced near-normal to below-normal precipitation. Statewide averages for temperature ranked as the 55th warmest and the 24th wettest since 1895.

March is often a month of transitions with some aspects of winter and some of spring. In March 2011, NC experienced some periods with very warm temperatures, days with very cold temperatures, snow, flooding, sleet, hail, tornadoes, and damaging thunderstorms. Details of all of these events are available through our Local Storm Reports Database, highlighted below.

Precipitation for March 2011
Based on estimates from NWS Radar
Data courtesy NWS/NCEP

Precipitation for March 2011: Percent of Normal
Based on estimates from NWS Radar
Data courtesy NWS/NCEP

Impacts to Agriculture and Water Resources

Above-normal precipitation in western NC brought substantial drought relief to water supplies. However, the lack of substantial precipitation in central NC since November 2010 continues to cause hydrological drought impacts in central NC, where streams and groundwater supplies continue to be much below-normal.

US Drought Monitor for North Carolina
Courtesy NC DENR Division of Water Resources

Severe Weather Products

Last fall our office released two web-based products useful for retrieving and displaying observations of severe weather across the Southeast. The Storm Reports Interactive Database allows users to view severe weather reports provided by NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center (SPC). Such reports include historical tornado, hail, and high wind observations across North Carolina and other southeastern states, and can be viewed through a dynamically-generated map based on user-selected intensity criteria and data. The following images depict reports summed by county for all records currently stored in the database from April-June.

Tornado Reports by County for April, May and June (1955-2009)
Data courtesy NOAA SPC

Hail Reports by County for April, May and June (1955-2009)
Data courtesy NOAA SPC

High Wind Reports by County for April, May and June (1955-2009)
Data courtesy NOAA SPC

The Local Storm Reports Database provides easy access to storm reports issued by the National Weather Service. Such data includes a variety of events, including thunderstorm and winter weather hazards, storm damage, and flooding. Reports are available from May 2001 to present, and can be searched for by date or by location. According to the LSR database, 34 events were reported in North Carolina in April 2010, with 20 reports of storm damage, 10 reports of hail, and 4 reports of tornadoes.

Local Storm Reports for April 2010
Data courtesy NWS