NORFOLK, Va. — Between North Carolina and Virginia, as many as 14 million people are in areas of drought, according to the National Drought Information Center.
Most of Hampton Roads and Northeastern North Carolina are in "moderate" or "abnormally dry" conditions. Areas further inland in Virginia—like Richmond and the Shenandoah Valley—are seeing more severe drought conditions.
Experts at Old Dominion University's Institute for Coastal Adaptation and Resilience said Hampton Roads is ahead when it comes to rainfall in the first couple weeks of July.
But they are seeing larger storms happening all at once.
And if you have noticed your yard being a lot more hard, kind of cracked, really dried out when we get a big rainfall, and it comes all at once in one heavy storm, the ground can't absorb that, and so it just runs straight off, and you end up with not as much drought relief as you would have otherwise.
"If you have noticed your yard being a lot more hard, kind of cracked, really dried out when we get a big rainfall, and it comes all at once in one heavy storm, the ground can't absorb that, and so it just runs straight off, and you end up with not as much drought relief as you would have otherwise," said Jessica Whitehead, the institute's executive director. "Because these really heavy, really fast rainfalls happening in, Suffolk, Isle of Wight, South Hampton, and also up on the Eastern Shore, they completely just run off. And if that quick rain that runs completely off, as opposed to a nice, slow soaking rainfall—and then having several of those over several days—is a lot worse. It's not going to provide as much relief for agriculture."
Whitehead told News 3's Jay Greene it's the same story for portions of Northeastern North Carolina, and it could make it harder for farmers in both states to grow and maintain crops.
Heat is of key interest for Whitehead, as well. She said the hotter weather showed up before people's bodies have had the opportunity to adapt. That's led to increased concerns for heat-related illness.
