Record Amounts of Rain!

I received the following data from the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Albany.  The data was collected from the Dutchess County Airport near Poughkeepsie (41° 37' 28" N, 073° 52' 58" W) here in the mid-Hudson Valley.

A listing of rainfall, and departures from normal, for each month in 2011 to date:

	Month		Precipitation
	January		1.78 in.
	February		3.65 in.
	March		5.17 in.
	April		4.63 in.
	May		5.16 in.
	June		4.40 in.
	July		2.24 in.
	August		13.23 in.
	September		7.30 in.
	Total		47.56 in.

The National Weather Service (NWS) uses a 30-year average for "normal" climate values of temperature, rainfall, etc. They also compute them in 10-year intervals such that the last yearly report, for 2010, compared the year to an average of values from 1971-2000. When the NWS prepares the yearly report for 2011, however, it will use an average of values from 1981-2010.

Anyway, how does this year stack up to what a "normal" amount of rainfall is in the Hudson Valley? Well, according to the 1981-2010 data, "normal" rainfall for the year is 46.53 inches. We've already exceeded that by 1 inch and we're only 3/4 of the way through the year!

On August 28-29, courtesy of Hurricane Irene, we had a record 24-hour rainfall total of 7.07 inches!

Enough already!