At Fairbanks airport between 1998 (when the change to ASOS occurred) and 2013, an observation of "heavy rain" was reported on only 27 days. Seven of these 16 years did not see any reports of heavy rain, while the record in this period was 8 heavy rain days in 2008. We have now seen 4 events in the past few weeks (June 19, June 26, June 30, and now today).
The culprit for today is a near-stationary east-west band of rainfall with embedded convection. Let's hope it doesn't remain in place too long, or it will cause renewed flooding concerns.
As of 9 AM it's still raining lightly and the sky is quite dark. I've got about 0.50" so far in my gauge today. The early morning thunder was unusual.
ReplyDeleteGuess who left their car windows cracked last eve? It was 82 here yesterday and I wanted to let the wet dog's pad dry out.
Gary
McGrath also reported Heavy Rain this morning. Farther to the southwest, radar indicated upwards of 2" near Aniak.
ReplyDeleteThanks Brian. That's an impressive amount of rain on the radar in the southwest.
DeleteLooks like Fairbanks is now tied for the most single-day 1-inch rainfall events in a year (3 events).
The GOES water vapor view indicates some impressive input flow:
ReplyDeletehttp://pafg.arh.noaa.gov/arhdata/sat/goes/14188173000/3gaf.jpg
Gary