Jared W. Smith

Charleston got an unusual wakeup call this morning: A 3.6 magnitude earthquake just a few miles from Goose Creek and Summerville. There is, indeed, a fault line in Summerville (making us California imports feel right at home), and it does occasionally perk up, but it’s rare when people actually feel it. So, understandably, there’s quite a buzz this morning.

I didn’t feel it in my apartment in West Ashley, but saw a message come across from the National Weather Service about a possible earthquake and put a message out on Twitter. I got a great response on FriendFeed, especially from Heidi, who was almost right over the epicenter. Reports are that it was felt as far as Johns Island, though.

Did you feel it? Feel free to leave your experience in comments.

Update: News2 reports that USGS has shifted the epicenter more towards Summerville. This jibes well with what Heidi was saying on FriendFeed, and explains some of the comments I’ve gotten from Goose Creek folks that didn’t feel it, either.

It’s definitely not going to feel very Decemberish this week, that’s for sure. Over the next couple days, we’ll be mired in occasional showers as a trough of low pressure is dropping in. This should clear out and bring us a very nice rest of the week.

It’s just not going to feel like December. NWS keeps us in the 70s for a majority of the week. Yes, 70s! It’ll be nice not to wake up and have to scrape my car, but still — the warmth will make it that much harder to get motivated to sit online and do Christmas shopping. The models seem to keep this warmth in play up through this weekend; temperatures seem to only begin to moderate closer to normal by the beginning of next week when another disturbance comes through. Don’t lose track of your sweaters, but keep the short sleeves handy through this week!

We in Charleston have reverted back to October, apparently. If you’ve stepped outside, you’ve undoubtedly noticed the return of warm, mid-70s temperatures, Charlestonian humidity and a familiar urge to dodge mosquitoes. Funk-nasty. This is happening thanks to a system pumping a very warm southerly flow into the area.

Well, this sort of thing doesn’t last too long in December, and typically, these temperature differences resolve themselves with force. A fairly potent storm system is sweeping through the middle of the country, causing plenty of problems with severe weather across Texas and into Mississippi and Alabama. So, as you might expect, we’ve got a slight risk of severe weather tomorrow, which primarily hinges on how much sunshine peeks through before the front arrives. In fact, the outer portions of the storm are showing up on radar.

So, keep an eye out during the day tomorrow — it could get a little rough at times. It’ll be through by Friday, and we’ll get back into upper 50s for highs (though the lows aren’t currently projected to be as low as they have been, which is good for my getting up on time). One thing is for certain, this late fall has been anything but normal; we just can’t seem to figure that out this time around.

So yeah. It’s cold outside, in case you haven’t noticed. Consider today’s numbers at the College of Charleston’s weather station — the temperature was only above 50 for a short time past midnight — we didn’t get back there. Temperatures are freefalling into the 30s at the time of this writing (roughly 9:30 PM) and will continue to drop.

This is fairly out of line for November — we’re usually dipping into the 40s for lows fairly regularly at this point, but we still typically see mid-to-upper 60s. We’re getting close to record cold, actually, for this time of year — the record low for this time of year was 29 set back in 1965, and we could blow that away.

Needless to say, the growing season will likely end tonight. Bring your plants inside, if possible, because they will likely not survive the night. Also, stay bundled up — layers, layers, layers! I know I’ll be digging for the long johns a bit earlier than I anticipated this time around.

The forecast indicates a small rebound later on into the week, but even if we top out at 60 degrees on Friday, we’re still well below normal for this time of year. Stay warm out there…

Who knows what kind of soggy mess we’re going to see when day breaks tomorrow — I can imagine it’s going to be pretty bad for folks at Northwoods Mall and in the Shadowmoss subdivision. My buddy Tom called and said he had to try three different ways to get in before he could actually access his house near the golf course. He said he saw a river running through the cartway.

Well, rivers generally begin running after ridiculous storm totals like these, which just came over the wire from the National Weather Service.

Public Information Statement
Statement as of 12:48 PM EDT on October 25, 2008

The following are unofficial storm total rainfall amounts for the
last 24 hours ending at midnight EDT Saturday.

…South Carolina…
Beaufort 2 N 4.54
Beaufort mcas 3.67
Bennetts Point 4.11
Charleston Airport 6.57
downtown Charleston 5.23
Dorchester 4.96
Goose Creek 4 se 6.74
Hardeeville 7 S 3.62
Hardeeville 13 S 4.17
Huger 3 NNE 6.58
McClellanville 6.41
short stay 3.13
west Ashley 5.62
Witherbee 6.10

Here’s hoping that in the end people are minimally impacted, but tomorrow morning will provide the grim details of the aftermath of today’s record rainfall.

Midday update: The Digitel says Ashley Ave. downtown is still underwater this morning. Having lived there for several years, I’m not surprised in the slightest.

Heavy rains have inundated Charleston most of the day — mix that with a high tide enhanced by an onshore wind, and you have trouble.

This is one Friday night to stay inside. The roads are at best an inconvenience; at worst, they are potentially deadly. Floodwaters are still rising throughout the area as heavy rain continues to pound Charleston. Lots of places are underwater and threaten to become impassable this evening, including:

• Calhoun at Ogier St, Downtown
• Vanderhorst at Smith St, Downtown
• Spring St. past Crosstown, before Ashley River bridges
• Start of Highway 61 just off Ashley River bridges (West Ashley)
• Highway 61 just north of Sam Rittenberg before Paul Cantrell Blvd. (West Ashley)
• Highway 61 between Tobias Gadson Rd. and Magwood Rd. (West Ashley)
• Long Point Road between 17N and Whipple Rd. (Mt. Pleasant) (thanks to Chad Norman)
• Market, Concord, and Hazel St. Downtown (NWS)
• Many streets in the Shadowmoss subdivision (West Ashley) (NWS)
• Main Road and Hwy. 17 in James Island (passable) (NWS)
• Many roads in Summerville (NWS)
• River Road on James Island (NWS)
• Hwy 17 and Orleans Road impassable in West Ashley (NWS)
• Reports of cars floating in Northwoods Mall parking lot, 2 feet of water in stores (Storm Team 2)
• All of East Bay south of Mount Pleasant Street (Ken Hawkins/The Digitel)
• Grove & Simons at Rutledge (Downtown) (Janet Edens Conover)

Spotters in Goose Creek have measured nearly 7″ of rain since midnight at Charleston Southern University. Similar reports of over 6″ of rain in West Ashley have been recorded, and that was a couple hours ago; I suspect the area will receive upwards of 7″ to in some areas approaching 8″ of rain before this is all said and done. The College of Charleston weather station has recorded nearly 5.5″ of rain as of 10:51 PM.

Update 10:46 PM: Eugene Mah sends this blog along, complete with a photo of his backyard which has got a bit of a river going through it at the moment. Also, here’s an incredible flooding picture from ABC News 4.

Update 11:11 PM: Rob Fowler reported over Twitter that I-26 into Downtown at Cosgrove is being closed.

Update 11:32 PM: We have absolutely shattered the official rainfall record for today at the airport with 6.54″ of rain. The record, which stood for exactly a year, was like 2.32″ or something.

Update 11:34 PM: Dan Tennant tweeted this picture of him standing in his yard. Yikes!

Update 11:35 PM: “Notoriously Nice” Mike Courtney sends along this photo from his backyard in Shadowmoss. Shadowmoss is in extremely bad shape tonight — big problems on the golf course.

A Flash Flood Warning is in effect for most of the Charleston metro area until 2:15 AM. I cannot reiterate this enough, but tonight is not a good night to go out. Stay indoors and off the roads; they are deadly. If you must drive — and there aren’t a lot of places to safely do that — be very careful of floodwaters and turn around, don’t drown. You can’t tell how deep they are, especially at night.

I’ll update this list through the night. Contact me over Twitter using @chswx or send e-mail to weather@jaredwsmith.com with any flooding reports you may have — I’ll relay them over Twitter and update this list. Also watch Twitter for any video updates I may do through the evening (I’ve done one already and will likely do at least one more).