Carolina Curious: Kids ask why the weather changes so often in such little time and more

Sixth graders at Thomas Jefferson Middle School in Winston-Salem are curious about the weather in the area. They're asking questions like: "Why doesn’t it ever seem to snow anymore? Do we get tornadoes? Does all the summer heat lead to droughts?"

In the latest installment of Carolina Curious, WFDD’s Amy Diaz took these questions — along with an umbrella — to the experts at the North Carolina State Climate Office.

The office is located in one of the research buildings on North Carolina State University’s campus in Raleigh. 

It’s about a two hour drive from Winston-Salem, and on a July morning, heavy rain poured down the whole way there. But Assistant State Climatologist Corey Davis doesn’t need to step outside, or even glance out a window to know that. 

“So yeah, I can see right along I-40, there's all the rain that you had to drive through," Davis said pointing to one of six big TV screens mounted on the far wall of the office.

Each displays a different weather model, showing conditions like rain, drought, humidity and temperature throughout North Carolina. 

“I like this one over here," he said pointing to the TV in the top right corner. "It gives you a good look at what's going on across the state. We've got our webcams so you can see it's raining in the mountains too. It's not just here in the Raleigh area.”

Davis started working with the climate office when he was a student at NC State in the meteorology program. It’s a subject he’s been interested in ever since he was a kid growing up in Forsyth County, watching hurricanes roll through in the summers. 

“I was just fascinated by these storms because they were so strong and they were so damaging," Davis said. "There was also kind of a beauty to these systems as well. And I just wanted to understand exactly what made them work.”

Now, as a climatologist, he studies all kinds of weather data in North Carolina and works to communicate it with people across the state. That makes Davis the perfect person to answer questions about climate and weather from six middle school students.  

Does Winston-Salem get tornadoes? - Nea Brooks

“So we have had tornadoes in Winston Salem, historically. Probably the most famous ones of those were back in May of 1989. So this was 35 years ago, and on that afternoon, we actually had two tornadoes that touched down about 15 minutes apart. One of those was just north of downtown Winston-Salem, so it missed a lot of those really tall buildings in the downtown area.”

The other one touched down right around the airport. Davis says it damaged some of the buildings, and knocked over planes. But for the most part, he says the Triad has avoided a lot of severe weather events.

"In fact, over that last 35 years, there have only been three tornadoes in all of Forsyth County, and a lot of those were luckily in places where not very many people live."

Why are we recently getting no snow in the winter? Why is it a 50/50 chance we get snow? - Jackson Willer and Reese Reynolds

Davis says these observations are spot-on. And there are two main reasons for the lack of snow. 

“One of those is just down to bad luck. To see snow in North Carolina, we need to have cold air in place, but also we need to have some sort of moisture, and usually that means a storm system that moves up from the south and brings precipitation that can fall into that cold air. So over the last couple winters, we just haven't seen that cold air line up with when those storms systems are coming through.”

But even aside from that, our average snowfall has been a lot lower than it used to be. Davis says there’s only been one time over the last six years where we’ve had more than two inches of snow in the winter. We used to average anywhere from six to 10. 

“So this is where we see the influence of climate change on our weather in North Carolina, and especially just over these last few years, we've seen it in the wintertime, our temperatures are a little bit warmer, and we know that one or two degrees in the atmosphere can make all the difference between seeing snow or just seeing a cold rain.”

He says our winters are also warming up sooner, so the window for getting snow is even shorter. All of those factors combined really reduce our chances for sledding and snowball fights. 

Why does the weather in Winston-Salem change so often in such little time? - Forrest Chapple

“So at this time of the year, when that happens, that's because during the day, as everything heats up, eventually, all that warm air near the ground wants to rise to cool down, and that creates clouds, and that can create rain showers and thunderstorms. So that type of pattern, we call that convection, it's warm air rising and then forming those afternoon showers and storms.”

In the summer, Davis says it might rain for five to 10 minutes, and then go back to being hot and sunny again. But this kind of thing can happen at other times of the year too for a totally different reason. 

“If you look at a globe, in North Carolina, we're right between the equator and the North Pole. We call this region the mid latitudes. So that means, on any given day, sometimes our weather may come from the south, that tends to be fairly warm and fairly moist air. And then in other cases, our weather may come from the north, and that tends to be colder and drier. So just depending on which way the winds are blowing or where our weather systems are coming from, we can go from being warm and wet one day to being cold and dry the next one.”

Why is it so hot in Winston-Salem and does it lead to droughts? - Juliana Hodrick

“Back in June, of course, we had a few weeks where it was very hot. Those high temperatures were getting up into the 90s. That's not something that we usually see, especially that early in the summer. So we had what sometimes people will call a heat dome in the atmosphere that was set up right over us. As a meteorologist, we would call this a very large high pressure system. So high pressure means you're piling up more air on top of you. And in the summertime, that's like piling up more blankets on top of you, so it's trapping in a lot more of that heat near the ground level.”

And that heat causes more water to evaporate. That plus a lack of rainfall can lead to droughts.

Davis says last month was the second driest June on record for North Carolina since 1895. A lot of areas had less than an inch of rain all month, when we used to have four to five inches of rain at that time of year. 

Why is global warming happening so fast in Winston-Salem? - Raelynn Thomas

“Well, this is a good observation, because what this tells me is it's not just global warming anymore. This is local warming that people are starting to notice, and it is happening more and more. In fact, as a state, we had our warmest year on record a few years ago, and especially when we look at our nighttime low temperatures, those continue to run much, much warmer than they used to be.”

Davis says this is all happening because of Greenhouse gas emissions trapping heat near the earth’s surface. It’s raising temperatures in North Carolina, but also changing our precipitation patterns.

“So as the atmosphere warms up, it's kind of like becoming a bigger sponge. It can store more water. So when it rains, more of that water is going to get squeezed out all at once. But it also takes longer between those rain events for that sponge to get saturated again. So those wet days are getting wetter and the dry periods are getting longer, and like we saw this summer, getting even faster droughts.”  

Davis says he’s encouraged by such great questions and observations from these students, and perhaps there’s a future meteorologist among them. Before heading home, we have just enough time to visit a nearby weather station on one of NC State’s research farms. 

On a big field, with corn and sunflowers growing in the distance, stands a tower, roughly 30-feet tall. It has all kinds of gadgets attached to it taking in different weather-related data points.

Off to the side, a bucket is held up on a pole with spikes around the rim to keep the birds away. Davis says it’s one of two rain gauges at the station.

“So as water falls down into them, it'll go through a funnel, and it goes in what I call a seesaw. You know, it tips back and forth. And each side of that seesaw can hold 1/100 of an inch of rain," Davis says. "So every time it tips, it knows that another 100th of an inch has fallen. So if you're ever out here when it's raining hard, that thing will be tip, tip, tip, tip. It can get a lot of rain pretty quick.”

And then, as if right on cue, it started to rain again.

Amy Diaz covers education for WFDD in partnership with Report For America. You can follow her on Twitter at @amydiaze.