This month is shaping up to be one of the driest Octobers ever recorded in Savannah, setting the area up for potential drought conditions and heightening the risk for wildfires, forecasters say.
Chatham, Bryan, Bulloch, Effingham and Liberty are among counties already designated as “abnormally dry,” according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor report released Thursday.
So far this month, just .02 inches of rain has fallen at Savannah-Hilton Head International Airport , according to the National Weather Service. If that total holds, it would tie for the second-dryest October in Savannah since record-keeping began in 1948, according to NWS.
The same amount of rain fell in October 1963. At the top (or bottom) of the list is October 2000, when just a trace of precipitation was measured.
October – with a historical average of about 2.5 inches of rainfall – typically is the second-dryest month of the year, behind only November. The highest total ever was nearly 20 inches in October 1994.