MIKE MOSS SAYS:        Tom,      Thanks for the kind words. Snowfall tends to be quite variable in our part of the country, both from place to place within the region, and also from year to year, with occasional cycles of greater and lesser amounts that seem to be superimposed on somewhat more random variation. To use the Raleigh-Durham airport as an example, there actually was a little snow this year, with a whopping half-inch in January!

As for winters with no measurable snow at all, the last one at RDU was the winter ending 2006, and before that the winters ending 1999, 1992 and 1991. Before that, you have to go back to 1957 for a snow-free winter at RDU, with 1953 and 1950 also coming up zeros. In addition, snowfall totaled less than an inch in the winters ending 1975, 1986 and 2005. So, a snow-free winter isn't the usual situation in our area, but is far from unheard of.

MIKE MOSS SAYS:        The probability of strong and violent tornadoes (EF2 and above) is very low in both places, but they certainly aren't unknown, recalling that an F4 storm struck Raleigh in 1988 (see http://www4.ncsu.edu/~nwsfo/storage/cases/19881128/ for details). Statistically, the probability of a strong or violent tornado on a given day in the spring for the Triangle area is about .07 percent, versus about .04 percent for the Suffolk area. Looked at a different way, the probability for the month of April that a tornado of EF2 or higher intensity will occur within 25 miles of a point for our area is roughly 1.5 percent, while for the Suffolk area it is around .9 percent.

These numbers are very small due to the infrequent nature of strong and violent tornadoes and also due to the relatively small amount of land area affected by storms that are typically a few hundres of years across and a few miles long, but that in no way diminishes their

MIKE MOSS SAYS:      Carolyn,     Any restrictions imposed on unincorporated portions of Wake County at this time are at the direction of the North Carolina Utilities Commission. The commission distributes its restrictions via the private water supply companies that provide community well service, usually via a letter from the company or an enclosure in monthly statements, so you may want to consider contacting the company that serves your neighborhood (probably Aqua North Carolina) to verify what guidelines they have in place. Municipal restrictions, along with some conservation suggestions and tips, are available at the Wake County government web site at

http://www.wakegov.com/water/restrictions.htm

MIKE MOSS SAYS:       Kathleen,     We do indeed make visits to schools rather frequently, but also tend to stay booked up fairly far in advance. The best route for requesting one of us to come out is via the request form at

http://www.wral.com/wral-tv/page/1104174/

MIKE MOSS SAYS:     Cathy,    Whether we're in a surplus depends on the time frame you count a rainfall anomaly against. Over the past year, for example, we are about 5.76 inches below normal at the RDU airport, but have done better with rain in recent months so that over the past 90 days, we're almost 1.4 inches above normal. The increase in rainfall amonts and coverage since the beginning of the year have aided greatly with the drought situation, resulting in area lakes and reservoirs that are now at or above target levels, streamflows that are within the normal range, at least over central and eastern NC (streamflows remain very low, in some cases the lowest on record, for the western third or so of the state). Likewise, some groundwater monitoring wells have shown a return to normal levels, mainly over the eastern half of the state, while some recovery is evident over central NC (but with wells still on the low side of normal) and groundwater remaining