Damaging winds, ‘torrential rain’ to descend on parched Charlotte. Here’s the latest.

Joe Marusak
·2 min read

This story was updated Thursday, June 3.

Thunderstorms could deliver damaging winds, cloud-to-ground lightning and “torrential rainfall” to large swaths of the Charlotte region on Thursday, according to a National Weather Service alert.

Gusts of 50 mph and greater are possible, meteorologist Robbie Munroe of the NWS office in Greer, S.C., told The Charlotte Observer on Wednesday.

“The main threat right now would be damaging winds, lightning, brief heavy downpours,” Munroe said.

NWS forecasters predict at least a half-inch of rain Thursday afternoon and evening across the entire region, including Rock Hill and other parts of Upstate South Carolina, according to Munroe.

According to an updated NWS alert Thursday, “excessive runoff may lead to minor flooding in flood-prone areas.”

Blame a cold front that’s trailing a severe weather system in the Ohio and Tennessee valleys, according to Munroe.

While the weather system is expected to veer to the north of the Carolinas, the cold front is forecast “to press through the area tomorrow into tomorrow night,” he said.

“This is a little more organized than what you would see later in the summer,” i.e., the isolated, pop-up type of thunderstorms, according to the meteorologist.

“Most areas should see rain with this system,” he said.

The deluge, however, will do little to eliminate drought conditions in parts of the region, Munroe said.

Except for a tiny sliver at Lake Norman, Mecklenburg County is ‘abnormally dry,’ according to the U.S. Drought Monitor map updated on Thursday, June 3, 2021.
Except for a tiny sliver at Lake Norman, Mecklenburg County is ‘abnormally dry,’ according to the U.S. Drought Monitor map updated on Thursday, June 3, 2021.

According to Thursday’s updated U.S. Drought Monitor map, all of Mecklenburg and Cabarrus counties, except for a tiny sliver of north Mecklenburg at Lake Norman, are under “abnormally dry” conditions. Western Union County, southeastern Gaston County and northern Iredell County also are abnormally dry, according to the map.

“Abnormally dry” is the least intense of five drought levels on the U.S. Drought Monitor map.

The amount of rain expected in Charlotte on Thursday “is not unusual here, so it would really take an above-normal type rainfall to really substantially help out with the drought,” Munroe said.

“It will certainly avoid things getting worse at least briefly, but that amount of rainfall is not going to put a dent in the ongoing drought,” he said.