{"id":588330,"date":"2026-04-16T19:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T19:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/588330\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T19:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T19:44:10","slug":"severe-drought-now-covers-100-of-western-north-carolina-and-upstate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/588330\/","title":{"rendered":"Severe drought now covers 100% of western North Carolina and Upstate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) \u2014 More than half of News 13&#8217;s coverage area, which includes western North Carolina and Upstate South Carolina, is in an extreme drought as of Thursday, April 16. <\/p>\n<p>According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, 59% of the area is in extreme drought, and 100% of it is in severe drought. Extreme drought is up 9% from last week and up 34.6% over the last month.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wlos.com\/news\/local\/drought-persists-asheville-western-north-carolina-climate-cycle-el-nino-southern-oscillation-la-nina-dry-conditions-rainfall-deficit-forecast-weather\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">DROUGHT PERSISTS IN WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA: HOW ONE CLIMATE CYCLE PLAYS A KEY ROLE<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The state of North Carolina has 95% severe drought and 22% extreme drought. Meanwhile, severe drought covers 93% of South Carolina, and 33% of the state is in extreme drought.<\/p>\n<p>The forecast shows a 40% chance of showers Saturday night into Sunday morning, which could bring some slight relief. <\/p>\n<p>Three months ago, 97% of News 13&#8217;s coverage area was in moderate drought, and 56% was in severe drought. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) \u2014 More than half of News 13&#8217;s coverage area, which includes western North Carolina and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-588330","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}