The main culprit behind our drought is an area of high pressure aloft (shown in graphic above) that has basically remained stationary over the deep Southeast for most of the spring and summer. You can imagine this high pressure air as almost a dam of warm air sitting over AL-GA-SC-TN-FL for nearly 6 months. Fronts have had a hard time getting through this dam of warm air, and when they do, they lose much of their moisture.

The high aloft means that air is warm and sinking. This keeps clouds from forming, and thus we did not get as many "pop-up" thunderstorms over the summer. The stagnant high also caused our string of 100plus degree days in August.

As if this were not enough, when the ground gets dry, there is less moisture for cloud development, and when clouds are limited - so is the rain. In a sense, a drought feeds on itself.

Tropical systems with heavy rains can break a drought, but most of the tropical systems have stayed well south of us because of the steering flow around the big high pressure system over the Southeast. The high just won't lose it's grip.

Normally, high pressure means nice, sunny, dry weather. But in our case - we need some low pressure air.