Why the Carolinas have seen months of extreme weather whiplash

Scores of wildfires broke out across North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia in early March 2025 as strong winds, abnormally dry conditions and low humidity combined to kindle and spread the flames.

The fires followed a year of weather whiplash in the Carolinas, from a flash drought over the summer to extreme hurricane flooding in September, and then back to drought again. Storms on March 5, 2025, helped douse many of the fires still burning, but the Southeast fire season is only beginning. Wake Forest University wildfire experts Lauren Lowman and Nick Corak put the fires and the region’s dry winter into context.

Why did the Carolinas see so many wildfires?

Most of North and South Carolina have been abnormally dry or in moderate drought since at least November 2024. Consistently dry conditions through the winter dried out vegetation, leaving fuel for wildfires.

When the land and vegetation is this dry, all it takes is a lightning strike or a man-made fire and wind gusts to start a wildfire.

Hurricanes did flood the region in late summer 2024, but before that, the Carolinas were experiencing a flash drought.

Flash droughts are extreme droughts that develop rapidly due to lack of precipitation and dry conditions in the atmosphere. When the atmosphere is dry, it pulls water from the vegetation and soils, causing the surface to dry out.

In August and September, Tropical Storm Debby and Hurricane Helene caused extensive flooding in the two states, but the Carolinas received little rainfall in the months that followed, leaving winter 2025 abnormally dry again.

How unusual are fires like this in the region?

Fires are historically fairly common in the Carolinas. They’re a natural part of the landscape, and many ecosystems have evolved to depend on them.

Carnivorous plants such as Venus flytraps and pitcher plants rely on frequent fire activity to remove shrubs and other plants that would grow over them and block the light. Even some wildlife depend on fire for their habitats and for food from the mix of native plants that regrow after a fire.

The expected return periods for wildfires (how often fires have historically burned in a region) range from 1 to 10 years for the Piedmont and Coastal Plains in the east and 10 to 40 years in the Appalachian Mountains. However, many unplanned fires today are put out. That means underbrush that would normally burn every decade or so can build up over time, fueling more intense fires when it does burn.

To avoid that overgrowth, land managers conduct annual prescribed fires to try to mimic that natural fire activity in a controlled way. These controlled burns are critical for removing vegetation that otherwise could provide additional fuel for more intense and damaging wildfires.

Is dryness like this becoming more common?

Extreme weather events are becoming more common across the U.S., including in the Southeast and the Carolinas.

Increasing temperatures mean the atmosphere can hold more moisture, amplifying how much water it can draw from the land surface and eventually drop in heavier storms. That can lead to more extreme storms and longer dry periods. In humid regions like the Southeast, where there is an abundance of dense vegetation, periods of warm, dry conditions that dry out that vegetation will increase the risk of wildfire.

According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, the southeastern U.S. experienced more droughts than other regions in the country in the first two decades of the 21st century.

The weather variability also makes it harder to clear out forest undergrowth. Prescribed burns require that vegetation be dry enough to burn but also that winds are calm enough to allow firefighters to manage the flames. Studies show those conditions are likely to become less common in the Southeast in a warming world. Without that tool to reduce fuel, the risk of intense wildfires rises.

Lauren Lowman is an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Wake Forest University.

Nick Corak is a PhD candidate in physics at Wake Forest University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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