Friday - October 07, 2011

Happy To Be Dry

I feel like celebrating. Today is the 4th day in a row that it has not rained*. That makes this the longest “drought” period here since mid-July. The monthly report is out from our state climatologist, and he confirms what I’ve posted here: it has hardly done a thing but rain since July 24th.

Don’t be mislead by the above chart. This only shows departure from average, it does not show total precipitation. (We had record breaking amounts of snow in January, but that barely made a blip on this graph.) It is also a state-wide average, balancing the wetter areas against the drier ones. Where I live, definitely a wetter area, in the northern part of Hunterdon County, we have had more than half a year’s average rainfall in the past two months. Probably closer to two thirds of a years worth than a half.

July:
Two weeks of no significant rain and really hot weather in the middle of the month allowed the rivers and streams still swollen from the spring runoff to finally get down to their median levels.

Almost daily storms roamed parts of the state during the final week, with the 24th bringing Sea Isle City (Cape May) 2.45” and Woodbine 1.95”. The northwest was wettest on the 25th, with Stockton (Hunterdon) coming in with 1.80”, Bethlehem Township (Hunterdon) at 1.76” and Greenwich Township (Warren) with 1.74”.

August:
17.72” of rain measured in Lambertville (southern Hunterdon County).
There were thirteen events in August that deposited at least 0.99” at one or more locations. [ days with less than an inch of rain not reported, but there were plenty of them too ]

September:
The beat goes on. September brought much of New Jersey a very wet month; this on the heels of record-shattering August rainfall. So too were temperatures well above normal; thus continuing an almost unbroken string of warmer-than-average months extending back to spring 2010. With three months remaining in 2011, the Garden State is knocking on the door of both the wettest (1996) and warmest (1998) years on record since statewide averages began to be compiled in 1895.

Returning back to this past September, the wettest portion of NJ was in the northwest where the Mt. Olive (Morris County) CoCoRaHS station saw the most rain, an impressive 16.88”. With just a few drops less, Blairstown (Warren) received 16.87”, with Oxford Township (Warren) coming in with 16.28”.  It should be noted that none of these totals include rain that fell after approximately 7AM on the 30th ... as those totals will be included with rain falling before 7AM on October 1 as part of October’s totals.

The three wettest stations above also lead the way with remarkable August-September totals that include 34.43” in Mt. Olive, 34.31” in Blairstown, and 32.59” at Oxford. Some stations in Sussex, Passaic, and Hunterdon counties also had at least 30.00”.

Only eight September days failed to see measurable rain fall at one or more NJ stations (1st-4th, 13th, 18th, 19th and 26th). The first and largest event of the month was associated with a moist tropical feed of moisture that included the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee. Between the 5th and 8th, centered on a very wet 6th, as much as 9.48” fell in Blairstown, 9.45” in Liberty Township (Warren), and 9.18” in Oxford Township.

Oxford is just a few miles north of here, over the line into Warren County. Weather-wise it’s pretty much the same as us. We don’t seem to have enough data gathering stations here in Hunterdon, so I’m going to have to infer a bit, but it looks pretty sure that we had 30-34” of rain since August, and you can add in another 4” for the last week in July, and perhaps another 2” for the start of October.

Currently our local water table is at less than 13.5 feet, which means that the ground beneath us is saturated at a level barely deeper than the foundations of the houses in the area. Oops. That’s twice as high as it normally is, and conditions are similar across most of the state.

Bottom line: It’s a pretty good bet that my corner of NJ has received as much as 40” of rain since the 25th of July, and there have only been about 10 days in that 75 day period when it hasn’t rained at least a little. I sure wish we could install a run-off pipeline that came out in Texas. If it doesn’t rain until winter sets in, that’s fine with me. We need a chance to dry off.

* = actually, I’m wrong. According to the data it rained here the first 5 days of the month. Which would explain the damp parking lots and the wet siding on the houses in the mornings. But that hasn’t been “real” rain, just heavy dew or some light night drippings. If I were to use that methods, then it has rained here 83 days since the beginning of May - 160 days. Hmmmph, actually that seems about right. Please no more rain. Please.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/07/2011 at 03:47 PM   
Filed Under: • Climate-Weather •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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