Our area’s thirst was lessened, but not quenched by rain during the past few days.
The National Weather Service reported the downpour that swept Liberty County early Monday afternoon dumped nearly a half inch of rain. Its exact measurement was .44 of an inch. That can be added to the two-four inches Liberty County received over the weekend due to Tropical Depression Barry traveling through our area.
The rain was welcomed in the drought-hit county, but it was not enough to lift water restrictions.
Georgia’s Automated Environmental Monitoring Network reported Tuesday the Savannah area is a little over five inches under the normal 18 inches of rain between January and June.
In a report by State Climatologist David Stooksbury at the University of Georgia, the weekend rain was primarily in the south central, southeast and east-central parts of the state while the rest of the state had little or no rainfall. Drought conditions improved in some areas but worsened in others.
According to Stooksbury, the long-term outlook is for the drought to continue to intensify.
Currently, 95 counties are classified as being in extreme drought, 49 in severe drought, 12 in moderate and three in mild drought.
Liberty and Long counties are two areas that moved from extreme to severe because of the soaking from Barry.
And although it was extremely helpful, Barry was not enough to extinguish the fires in Ware and Charlton counties.
According to Larry Morris with the Georgia Forestry Commission’s Joint Information Center in Waycross, the rain helped firefighters concentrate on hot spots and areas that were spared the rainfall. However, other areas that dried quickly continued to burn. It is estimated that two fires in Ware and Charlton counties are 85-90 percent contained.
On Friday, Gov. Sonny Perdue requested a presidential emergency declaration for all the 21 counties that are impacted by the continued widespread threat of drought and wildfires.
The declaration requested by the governor would provide public assistance funds for mobilization and demobilization reimbursements associated with firefighting costs for state and local governments. In addition, the declaration could include reimbursement costs for debris removal around threatened property and the removal of fire damaged property.
The counties are Atkinson, Bacon, Berrien, Brantley, Bryan, Camden, Charlton, Chatham, Clinch, Coffee, Echols, Effingham, Glynn, Lanier, Liberty, Long, Lowndes, McIntosh, Pierce, Ware and Wayne.