The N.C. State Climate Office has launched a year-in-review tool that gives a review of trends and records at weather stations across the state. 

After months of dry weather, drought is translating into wildfires and burn bans.

A burn ban has been issued for 14 Western North Carolina counties in the face of expanding drought following the state’s 10th-driest October since records began in 1895.

Much of the western region is now in drought, with severe drought entering the state for the first time since November 2022. This is now the third consecutive fall in which parts of Western North Carolina have reached the “severe drought” designation.

Drought has re-entered the western region, with the most recent drought conditions map labeling Transylvania and Henderson counties as experiencing moderate drought.

North Carolina saw its 26th coolest May in the last 129 years, with the National Centers for Environmental Information reporting a preliminary statewide average temperature of 64.4 degrees, 2.5 degrees below the 1991-2020 average.

During his 30 years living and teaching in Western North Carolina, Maurice Phipps has heard countless tales of tragedy and near misses set in the Southern Appalachian backcountry — people falling off waterfalls , shivering in the cold  while awaiting rescue after a wrong turn on the trail, or logging hair-raising experiences with wildlife .

Preston Jacobsen, a man some know better as the Local Yokel Weather guy, comes by his love of meteorology honestly.

Sun is shifting in and out of the clouds covering Cataloochee Ski Area on Friday, Jan. 14, as I catch a ride to the top of Easy Way with Greenville, South Carolina, resident William Oliver. It’s my first run of the day, but he’s been riding for a while now — and after the warm weather and closures that plagued eastern ski resorts in December, he’s enthusiastic about today’s snow report. 

On the afternoon of Tuesday, Aug. 17, Rob Young was watching the rain fall. He watched it first through the windows of his office at Western Carolina University and then later at his home in Webster — and, continuously, on his computer screen, where ever-changing river depths were displayed through the state’s Flood Inundation Mapping and Alert Network, or FIMAN .