Wayne County out of drought condition
By Anessa Myers
Published in News on November 24, 2008 1:53 PM
Goldsboro might not have to be under voluntary water restrictions much longer.
Since Sept. 30, Wayne County has remained in the abnormally dry category. But on Thursday, the North Carolina Drought Manage-ment Advisory Council announced the county wasn't listed in any category at all.
Goldsboro Public Utilities director Karen Brashear said dropping off the drought list is good news, and at the next City Council work session on Dec. 1, she will bring the topic of water restrictions back to council members for discussion.
"I expect that the city will go back to normal, without any water restrictions," Mrs. Brashear said. "Meteorolo-gists are saying that we are going to have a colder and wetter winter, so we should be OK."
Lara Pagano, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Raleigh, said, as the forecast stands now, North Carolina will likely have a winter that is full of low temperatures and high precipitation.
But she said the forecast is based on many factors, and as the season goes on, the forecast might change.
"Some of the snow events are a little hard to forecast in advance. Monday and into Tuesday, we are going to be seeing a cold front with a chance of showers," she said.
Ms. Pagano said those low temperatures won't be low enough, however, to support snow.
As the week goes on toward the Thanksgiving holiday, Wayne County will see temperatures decrease Tuesday through Wednesday but will see mid-50 degrees and possibly even 60-degree temperatures toward the end of the week.
A year ago, the water situation was flipped -- North Carolina was in trouble with water.
On Nov. 20, Wayne was in extreme drought -- the second to worst category -- with 21 other counties, and 56 counties were in the worst category of exceptional drought. There were no counties in abnormally dry then.
Currently, the majority of North Carolina's counties are in abnormally dry, while 20 are in moderate drought, eight are in severe drought, eight in extreme drought and six in exceptional drought.