September 26th Rainfall Event. Was it a record setter?

Without question we got a lot of rain yesterday and it came in many waves. The first wave passed through the county yesterday morning and delivered 1.31 inches of rain here at the weather center while folks in other areas of the county say less than a half of an inch. 

Wave two passed through last night and this was a much more wide spread wave that got everyone involved in some much needed and heavy rainfall. Officially at the Rowan County Airport yesterday a total of 3.68 inches of rainfall fell. In your mind you would think. That's got to be a record for that date at least right? What if I told you it's not?

As you can see from the chart above September 26th 1956 had 4.25 inches of rainfall? That's over half of an inch more than we received yesterday. Now yesterday's rainfall does rank second all time for September 26th here in Rowan County well ahead of what was 2nd place back on September 26th 1942. Yesterday's total was almost 2.5 inches more than the 1942 total.

When was the last time we had more rain in a single day here in the county?

You have to go all the way back to August 27th 2008 when we had 5.90 inches of rain in one day here in Rowan County. Almost 8 years and 1 month to the day. Now August 27th 2008 also holds the distinction for being the all time single day rainfall record in the county.

Now I know a lot of you reading this are thinking. What does this do for our rainfall total for the year? Obviously that has an impact on how far we are now behind and the drought monitor we have talked about for the past few weeks. 

With the total form yesterday added in we have gone from 9.14 to 5.46 inches below normal for the year. More rain is coming throughout the day today to help eat away at that deficit.

Please be aware of your surroundings out there today folks. We had several trees fall around the county last night due to the ground becoming so saturated so quickly. As always thank you for following Rowan County Weather!