Soaking rains could replenish dry SC this fall

Exposed rocks and shallow water in the Congaree River this summer are turning a routine canoe trip into an adventure many paddlers aren’t accustomed to.

A drought that began two months ago has lowered water levels enough that boats must work harder to get past obstacles in parts of the river. And that, in some cases, has caused a normal float trip to last twice as long as in wetter summers, said Jesse Koch, manager at the River Runner outfitter store in Columbia.

“You are scraping a lot of small shoals and stuff like that,” Koch said, noting people “need to recognize the fact that last year they might have gone out for an hour-and-a-half- or two-hour float. This year, it might take four to five hours.”

In many areas of South Carolina, folks are feeling the effects of a short-term drought that has dropped water levels and hurt crops – but signs are encouraging that more rain is on the way. That could mean this drought, compared to those in recent past, will be short-lived.

Wetter weather is forecast across the south-central United States after a dry summer, spreading into the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic states, according to AccuWeather, a national forecasting service that put out its fall forecast this past week. The prediction said “a significant amount of moisture” will make its way into the Southeast through late fall and beyond.”

Hope Mizzell, South Carolina’s state climatologist, isn’t ready to declare victory over the drought, but said there is hope the dry weather pattern will diminish. She said the late fall and winter have a chance to experience normal, or even heavier, periods of rain.

“It will take only a normal rainfall this winter to improve the situation,” she said. “It’s not going to take a record rainfall.”

Many parts of the state have received only 50 percent of the rainfall they normally get in a typical summer, Mizzell said. Compound that with 17 days that reached 100 degrees or more, and a lot of water is evaporating, weather experts say.

An El Nino weather system, like the one moving across the country this year, often results in more rain for the Southeast in the winter, weather forecasters say.

“We are watching this El Nino develop,” Mizzell said.

A rainy fall and winter would head off chances of a multi-year drought like those that have occurred in the recent past, she said. Those droughts were more pronounced, with an array of consequences. Among the effects were salt water encroaching far up rivers and threatening drinking water supplies. In some spots, such as Lake Hartwell, parts of reservoirs turned into drying mud flats.

Still, the effects of drought are being noticed. Despite some soaking thunderstorms recently, much of South Carolina continues to deal with the consequences of a parched summer.

River levels are down in many places, boat ramps on some lakes have closed, crops are in danger and leaves are dropping in some spots around Columbia well before autumn arrives. And at Congaree National Park near Columbia, biting chiggers are reportedly on the rise because of the dry weather.

Waterways are low

Every county in South Carolina is now under a state drought status.

In mid-July, Richland and Lexington counties and counties to the west were declared by the S.C. Department of Natural Resources to be in an incipient drought stage, the lowest level of severity. Aiken, Fairfield and Kershaw are among the counties deemed to be in a moderate drought.

The hardest hit areas include the Catawba, Pee Dee and Edisto river basins, where some creeks that feed major rivers are little more than trickling streams, according to state data and people tracking the drought in those areas. Records show the drought has worsened since late June.

Lakes on the upper end of the Catawba have been hurt most by drought within the river basin, said Sam Perkins, the Catawba Riverkeeper. Lake Wylie is down 2.2 feet from normal, he said.

“It’s pretty bad,” Perkins said.

Rain gauges from Anderson and Greer in the foothills, to Orangeburg and Florence in the state’s central sections, show lower levels of precipitation this year, according to DNR statistics.

The areas that have fared better are on parts of the coast near Charleston and Hilton Head Island.

The Columbia area falls somewhere in the middle, with some places registering less rain and others, substantially more than normal.

Lake Murray is in good shape, with lake levels near normal, according to SCE&G, which manages the Columbia-area reservoir. Lake Wateree also is not in bad condition. But water levels are down enough on some rivers that plenty of people have noticed.

“I’m getting calls and emails from people concerned about boat access and not being able to get boats in on ramps,” Congaree Riverkeeper Bill Stangler said.

Stangler said rocks extend two feet beyond a boat landing he uses on the Broad River, just upstream from the Congaree.

Crops, trees, golf courses needing water

Charlene Coleman, a long-time river enthusiast in the Columbia area, said she’s also noticed leaves are falling from trees in some spots, even though autumn is more than a month away.

“I’m looking at some Bradford pears right now, and the tops are all brown,” she said last week. “It’s kind of early for trees to be losing their leaves.”

Farmers are particularly mindful of the drought. The dry summer has damaged some crops, such as corn, and created concern about other crops that have yet to come in. Cotton, peanuts, soybeans and peaches are among the crops to be harvested later in the year, according to the S.C. Department of Agriculture.

“It’s something we are concerned about,” said Aaron Wood, an assistant commissioner at the S.C. Department of Agriculture. “We just keep praying for some rain. It’s not all lost yet.”

Wood said while many crop farms use irrigation, there’s little substitute for ample rain.

“I’ve talked to several farmers recently who have irrigation (systems), but most of the time, that is only a portion of their acreage,” he said. “They don’t have every acre irrigated. And when it has been this hot – 100 degrees – the irrigation can’t keep up. It helps considerably, but it does not completely replace timely rainfall.”

Clay DuBose, general manager and golf course superintendent at the Tradition Club in Pawleys Island, said the drought has deadened some areas on the edge of the course where irrigation couldn’t reach. It’s an aesthetic issue more than anything, but one the club would like to avoid, he said.

“You get to the edge of the golf course, things like that, and it really starts to suffer,” he said, although he noted that some recent rain has helped those areas bounce back.

The drought also has lowered water levels in Congaree National Park. The drop in water hasn’t been substantial enough to prevent canoeing, but it has been noticeable.

Dry weather also has apparently contributed to another problem: more biting chiggers for visitors to deal with. While mosquitoes, which rely on standing water, seem to be down in numbers, an apparent increase in chiggers offsets that, said Liz Struhar, the park’s chief of resource management.

“The chiggers are worse,” Struhar said.

Dry conditions likely still will abound in many places as the deer hunting season opens.

Less fresh vegetation will mean fewer food sources and could “increase deer movement as we move into the fall,” Charles Ruth, DNR’s deer project supervisor, told The (Myrtle Beach) Sun News last week.

More deer on the move could be something both hunters and motorists will need to pay attention to.

For paddlers, a smooth, quicker trip down the Congaree River would be welcomed. Some people who have paddled the Congaree this summer have been caught in late afternoon thunderstorms because it is taking so long to wind their way down the river, Koch said.

It’s ironic people are getting soaked in thunderstorms because there hasn’t been enough rain to keep river levels high, he said.

“They’ve just been stuck in these storms,” said Koch, noting that he’ll be glad when normal rainfall returns.

This story was originally published August 15, 2015 at 6:49 PM.