By Steve Huffman and Jessie Burchette
shuffman@salisburypost.com
Rain clouds that are expected to bog down over much of North and South Carolina over the next few days will go far toward alleviating a months-long drought.
But that’s not going to make it very pleasant for wandering in the great outdoors.
Anywhere from 2 to 4 inches of rain is expected to fall before a cold weather system pushes it all out of the area come Sunday.
Until then, expect it to be damp and cool.
“It’s going to be wet all the way through Saturday,” said Terry Benthall, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service outside Greenville, S.C.
He said the heaviest of the precipitation should fall either this morning or Saturday.
Benthall said that while Rowan County is dry, it’s not nearly as parched as upstate South Carolina where his office is located. According to the National Weather Service, Rowan and surrounding counties are 3.85 inches below their normal rainfall totals since Jan. 1, 2008.
By comparison, upstate South Carolina is 14.66 inches below normal. Asheville’s conditions are even worse, showing a deficit of 16.86 inches.
“The rain you’ll be getting over the next few days should go a long ways toward getting your totals back close to normal,” Benthall said Wednesday afternoon.
The possibility of four days of rain sounds great to most farmers in the area.
“After the last two-and-a-half years, agricultural people don’t complain when it rains,” said Joe Hampton, superintendent of Piedmont Research Station.
Hampton cited the tough times brought on by continued drought that forced cattle farmers to turn to feeding cornstalks to get through the winter.
The Research Station on Sherrills Ford Road served as a regional delivery point for loads of hay and cornstalks in the fall of 2007 and early 2008.
“That situation changed our attitude,” Hampton said. “We appreciate rain now.”
Despite snow and some rains, Hampton said it has been a long time since the ground has been saturated.
A few days of steady rain will provide a boost to small grain crops and get fescue pastures and hayfields off to a good start.
The timing of the rain is just about perfect for many of the farmers and gardeners in the southern end of the county.
Henry Goodnight at L.L. Goodnight & Sons on Saw Road said most of the farmers have fertilized their hayfields and grain crops.
And now they are waiting for the next big effort ó planting corn.
“Farmers will be planting field corn at the end of the month and the first of April,” Goodnight said. “They like to start the season with the water table up. It’s good to have a lot of moisture in the soil.”
Between the snow, the rain and the warm weather, fields started greening up by mid-February, he said.
Goodnight noted it will also be a plus to many of the early gardeners who have potatoes and other cole crops planted.