Science in the Triangle

Anybody who moves to Raleigh, Durham or Chapel Hill from out-of-state realizes fairly quickly what a big deal the weather is around here.

The Research Triangle area is a watering hole for scientists of all stripes, but science is not what drives the local interest in rain or shine. No, it’s a healthy respect for some of the craziest weather patterns along the East Coast.

At least, that’s Chris Hohmann‘s and Ryan Boyles‘ take. Hohmann is chief meteorologist at ABC 11 Eyewitness News and has tried to make sense of the local weather for nearly two decades. As North Carolina’s climatologist, Boyles, a Durham native, advises farmers across the state on how weather patterns are likely to affect their crops.

“We have easily the most complex weather on the East Coast. That’s typical for North Carolina,” Boyles said Tuesday during a presentation at the Periodic Tables, a gathering organized once a month by the Museum of Life and Science at the Broad Street Cafe in Durham.

In summer and fall, only Florida sees more hurricanes make landfall than North Carolina.

(Graphic on right shows the number of storms that affected North Carolina by decade.)

On average, the state has been affected by at least one hurricane or tropical storm every year in the past 150 years, according to the state climate office. Hurricane season, which runs from May to December, peaks in September.

Hazel, a Category 4 storm that made landfall near Wilmington in the fall of 1954, is considered North Carolina’s most destructive hurricane.

Many people in the Triangle still remember the power outages and flooding in the wakes of Fran in 1996 and Floyd in 1999.

Boyles recalled having no electricity in his Cary home for two weeks after Fran.

Hurricane season is a good example for the complexity of North Carolina’s weather.

The torrential rains that accompany the storms are drought busters, capable of cleansing coastal marshes, and October is the third most active month during hurricane season, according to state climate statistics. But fall is also North Carolina’s dryest time of the year.

And then follows winter, the season Hohmann said he dreads most because North Carolina snow storm are notoriously fickle.

A winter storm passing through can produce flurries north of Durham, freezing rain in Raleigh and a thunderstorm and 70-degrees in Fayetteville, Hohmann said.

Memorable winter storms hit the Triangle Jan. 25, 2000, when close to a foot of snow closed businesses and schools for days, and on Dec. 4 and 5, 2002, when record amounts of freezing rain did the same.

A few more weather facts:

• An experiment in the early 1960s to weaken hurricanes proved unsuccessful, but Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates this summer floated an idea to influence hurricanes with the help of barges filled with large amounts of cool water.
• Five- and seven-day weather forecasts have become popular, but they aren’t reliable. “I don’t take the blame for anything I say after three days,” Hohmann said.
• While projections exist about how climate change may affect sea levels and temperature changes globally, there’s no way to tell what the temperature will be in North Carolina in 50 years or 100 years, or how many hurricanes might affect the state’s coastal areas then.
• Of the 56 North Carolinians who died because of Hurricane Floyd in 1999, 50 drowned in inland freshwater flooding after the hurricane had passed.

Next Periodic Tables: Oct. 13 on “The science of beer.”