2015 was topsy-turvy weatherwise

Wednesday’s daily record rainfall capped a year of wild swings in what fell from the sky – and for several months what didn’t – in the Charlotte region.

In the end, despite a summerlong drought, the region saw about 8 inches more rain than normal through Dec. 30, including a record-setting November.

The 49.31 inches that fell at Charlotte Douglas International Airport over the year might seem like a lot given the normal 30-year average of 41.53 inches.

But this year’s total came nowhere close to the record 68.44 inches that fell in 1884, said Neil Dixon, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Greer, S.C.

This year’s overall rainfall would have been much higher if not for the summer dry spell.

Rainfall was near normal through April before parched conditions took over, said Harry Gerapetritis, another meteorologist at the NWS office.

By late July, Duke Energy asked everyone who uses water from area lakes for irrigation to voluntarily limit watering to Tuesdays and Saturdays. Residents from Charlotte to Winston-Salem had already been asked to voluntarily conserve water, including limiting car washing and watering grass.

Duke Energy, which manages the 11 lakes in the Catawba-Wateree River Basin under federal license, also increased surveillance of its public boating access areas. Some boat ramps were closed because of lower lake levels.

By Sept. 21, the region “bottomed out at about 7 inches below normal,” Gerapetritis said.

It took until Oct. 1 for the spigots to “really turn on,” he said, and rainfall was finally back to normal by Nov. 7 and 8, he said.

The rain kicked in as the weather pattern known as El Niño strengthened, Krentz said. El Niño is marked by a prolonged warming of the Pacific Ocean that leads to wetter winters in the Southeast.

From then on, the rain never seemed to stop.

November experienced a record 10.04 inches, well above the previous mark of 8.17 inches set in 1948, Dixon said.

And December was only a bit less wet.

Through Dec. 30, the month ranked third all time for rainfall in December with 8.53 inches at the airport, NWS meteorologist Danny Gant said.

That included a daily record for Dec. 30 when 2.03 inches of rain fell Wednesday at Charlotte Douglas. The deluge caused 61 flash floods in the Charlotte area.

“It smashed the record,” Gant said, as the previous mark for Dec. 30 was set in 2007, when 1.2 inches of rain fell.

The all-time record for December was set in 1931, when 11.24 inches fell, the meteorologist said. December 1927 ranks second at 9.52 inches, he said.

While 2015’s topsy-turvy weather might have seemed out of whack, it wasn’t, Krentz said. “We’ve seen this happen before.”

As for 2016, the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center forecasts weather three months out. The center predicts normal temperatures for the Carolinas in January, February and March and a 40-percent chance of above-normal rainfall, Krentz said.

This story was originally published December 31, 2015 at 2:54 PM with the headline "2015 was topsy-turvy weatherwise."