It seems to be raining every day in Myrtle Beach, but we actually had a dry January

Chase Karacostas
·2 min read
The water line from Hurricane Florence’s 2018 flood still shows in the trees as the February 2020 flood covers Landing Road in Bucksville. Rising floodwaters have closed roads and threatened homes throughout Horry County, SC on Wednesday. February 19, 2020.

Myrtle Beach joined the “dry January” trend — rain-wise, that is. Really; we’re not kidding.

While the past month might have felt, at times, perpetually damp, weather statistics say it mostly wasn’t.

Is now a bad time to also mention it’s also been a fairly warm month at the beach?

The multi-year climate cycle known as La Niña brought the Grand Strand a warmer and drier than normal January ... sort of.

Starting with the temperature, the first three days of 2021 were unusually warm for these parts, according to the National Weather Service. Those few days were so warm, in fact, that while the rest of the month has been colder than average, the area’s average temperature — 57.1 degrees — almost caught up with the usual average high of 58 degrees for the calendar month, NWS meteorologist Terry Lebo said.

Now for the wetness. Yes, it has been drizzly most days. However, there has been very little rain each time, Lebo said.

What’s happening is a bunch of fast-moving storms keep passing through the area, dumping just a little bit of rain each time before heading off or fizzling out. And if it weren’t for the 1.57 inches of rain Myrtle Beach saw on the 31st, the total rainfall would’ve been more than 15% below normal. Thanks to yesterday’s torrent, we ended up nearly 25% above average for January rainfall.

Excluding the 31st, It’s enough to make your house shoes nasty when getting the paper but not enough to fully water your porch plants.

That’s why it’s damp and gross all the time.

“I know it doesn’t feel like warm and dry, but technically we are,” Lebo said.

Let the sun shine in?

When will it all end? When will it be warm AND sunny rather than cold and sunny or wet and slightly-less-cold?

Lebo said February will probably look similar to January. But the weather should start to dry out late this month and into early March. If spring break weather plans to come early, it’s too early to tell right now.

“These (weather) patterns, they tend to move on a much slower pace than a day or a week,” he said. “They’ll take weeks or even a month or two to make a big shift.”

In short, it’ll be soup and hot chocolate weather a while longer.