SouthCoast Got Rain, but Was It Enough to Squash the Drought?

This has been, by far, the driest summer in my memory here on the SouthCoast, but don't take my word for it.

Just take a look around at the brown lawns all over the area.  A green lawn is a losing battle this summer.

For weeks, ABC6 meteorologist Chelsea Priest has been warning that when we finally got significant rainfall, we'd be running the risk of flooding in the usual spots.

"The ground is so incredibly dry right now, so when we do get the rain, the land is too dry to soak it up," Priest told us. "It's going to cause flooding."

That's exactly what happened yesterday in Rhode Island. The state had incredible amounts of rainfall, and the water had nowhere to go at places including Thurbers Avenue on I-95, which looked like a lake.

How much rain did we get?

Nothing significant yesterday here on the SouthCoast, but in Rhode Island it was a much different story. Priest says more than 10 inches of rain have fallen in Cranston over the past two days. To put that into perspective, that would translate into a little more than eight feet of snow.  That kind of precipitation should go a long way to dropping the drought threat level.

Here on the SouthCoast, however, the rainfall was more modest.

Priest says we'll get the next drought level assessment on Thursday morning. She says in the meantime there are some SouthCoast spots that are still classified as being in an extreme drought, while others are still severe. She expects we'll have some work to do to fully recover from this incredibly dry weather.

We'll need a few more rainy days to get out of this status.