That’s right, due to an extremely snowy winter/spring, the wettest February on record, a stormy summer, and two tropical systems, we’ve officially reached and surpassed our average precipitation amount for the year. A typical year should yield about 45.17 inches of precipitation. That’s melted snow and rain combined. Since January 1st we’re sitting at 49.34 or 4.17 inches above our yearly average. Keep in mind, we still have three months and some change left to go this year!
The 49.34” of precipitation makes this year the 34th wettest year since records have been kept. Because we will likely add more precipitation between now and the end of the year, we will continue to climb the ladder on placement. The record amount of yearly precipitation for Lexington is 66.35 inches set back in 2011. We may not touch this, but we will likely make a jump between now and December 31st.
Looking at the monthly precipitation totals, a few stand out. Like February. We totaled 10.13” of precipitation in February which is the wettest February on record. While one might think that’s snow, we actually had a very warm February…the second warmest, in fact. So most of that precipitation fell as rain. May was also a wetter than average month with just under 7.50” of rain. This September, we had to deal with two tropical systems (Gordon and Florence). Both brought high amounts of rain in a short amount of time.
It’s going to be interesting to see where we end up at the end of the year!
-Meteorologist Seth Phillips
