GRAHAM, N.C. \u2014 Worsening drought conditions across the Triad have led Graham Recreation & Parks to cancel its Slice of Summer festival, while multiple river-based businesses in the area report longer float times and financial strain tied to historically low water levels.<\/p>\n
Graham Recreation\u00a0& Parks announced it will\u00a0not host Slice of Summer, a\u00a0water-themed festival originally\u00a0scheduled for Saturday, June 27, at\u00a0Bill Cooke Park, citing ongoing drought\u00a0conditions. The department said it\u00a0plans to use the cancellation as an\u00a0opportunity to gather community\u00a0feedback for future years through an\u00a0online survey, which will remain open\u00a0through Friday, July 3. Participants\u00a0will be entered into a drawing for\u00a0prizes, including a $100 Food Lion gift\u00a0card and two branded blankets, with\u00a0winners announced the following week.<\/p>\n
The cancellation comes as low river levels are also affecting recreational businesses in the region. MadTown Tubing in Rockingham County said in a social media post that falling water levels have slowed the current significantly, with float times from put-in to take-out stretching to six hours on a recent day. The company said it has adjusted its reservation time slots as a result and is urging customers to check its website for updates.<\/p>\n
In Stokes County, the Dan River Company has sold off part of its rental fleet in an effort to keep the business operating amid the drought, according to the business’s post on Facebook.<\/p>\n
The disruptions come as North Carolina experiences its worst drought since 2008. According to state drought tracking, 3% of North Carolina was within the most severe “exceptional” drought category as of June 11, including parts of southeastern Guilford, southern Alamance and most of Orange County \u2014 marking the first time Guilford and Alamance counties have reached that designation since 2008. More than a third of the state was under extreme drought, the second-worst classification, and 90% of North Carolina was under severe drought or worse.<\/p>\n
The National Centers for Environmental Information says North Carolina would need 12 to 14 inches of rain statewide over the next month to fully ease the drought, or 22 to 26 inches over three months to erase it entirely, with the Triad needing slightly more than the statewide average in both cases. Forecasters put the odds of enough rain falling within a month at just 0.04%, and the odds over three months between roughly 0.7% and 1.8%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GRAHAM, N.C. \u2014 Worsening drought conditions across the Triad have led Graham Recreation & Parks to cancel its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":710875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":["post-710874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710874","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=710874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/710875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}