Recent (Weather) Observations

Melissa looks over Indian River during a high water event

It has been incredibly wet the last few days. I do not think it stopped raining between sometime early Thursday and Friday evening. Thursday finished off a damp month of August. There was 12.53 inches of rain in the month, nearly twice the long term average of 6.58 inches. There was only one day with no precipitation, and two more with just a trace of precipitation. Thursday saw 3.33 inches of rain. September started the way August ended, with 2.28 inches of rain.

With all the rain on Thursday, I was hoping to see Indian River at a very high flood stage, so Melissa and I went down to the river where the flume splits off to see how high the water was. It was definitely above normal (see photo), but no where near as high as I saw in 2002. After heavy rain that day in 2002, the water was up almost to the top of the railings seen in this photo. The interesting thing is, the weather records for that month do not record any days with as much rain as we had either Thursday or Friday this week. However, the rainfall is officially measured at the airport, and rainfall in a given rain event may vary quite a bit between there and Indian River valley. Perhaps that year, the bulk of the rain was falling up the valley, whereas this week it was falling over town.

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