An Eastern geographer said despite any rainfall we may have received this past week, the Charleston area is still in a moderate drought.

The geographer, Cameron Craig, said the area has only received rain during the weekend and it was only .01 inches.

“Even though we got some rain what people’s perceptions are is that when it rains they go ‘oh we’re out of the drought,’ this is not the case,” Craig said.

He said many people have many misconceptions about rain and droughts and think any kind of rainfall will reverse it.

Craig said because the surface atmosphere is so dry there needs to be continuous rainfall to reverse the effects of dryness.

“We need eight inches just to get us back to where we should be,” Craig said.

He said even though nearly half an inch of rain is supposed to fall Friday and Saturday, it will fall over the course of 48 hours and needs to be continuous to have any effect.

“A half an inch that’s nothing,” Craig said. “You have to exaggerate the precipitation to have any effect.”

He said the reason why minimal rainfall has landed on the Charleston area is because it is located below an arc of the jet stream of warm, dry air since the beginning of June.

Craig said areas to the north, such as Wisconsin and Michigan have been fine because of the part of the jet stream they are below.

He said if the jet stream moved farther south the Charleston area would receive rain as well.

Though the radar has been showing areas of precipitation above Charleston, Craig said this is actually picking up the atmosphere a mile above the town.

He said the concern should really be with the atmosphere 400 to 600 feet above the earth, which cannot be detected by radar because of the curvature of the Earth.

“So it’s raining up there,” Craig said. “But the surface is to dry. We need rain to reverse the affect of dryness.”

Seth Schroeder can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].