Past IEM Features tagged: heavyrain
Top Hourly Precip Events
15 Jul 2020 05:10 AMIt had been over a month since significant rainfall fell on Ames and Des Moines. Big and slow moving storms brought severe weather and heavy rainfall to the area. The featured chart presents the largest "hourly" precipitation totals reported by the Ames Airport weather station. The "hourly" totals are shown for the station's mandatory hourly reporting time at 53 minutes after the hour. It is one of the reporting quirks that makes working with the dataset so much fun. Anyway, the event yesterday ranks third with data dating back to 1996.
Voting:
Good: 10
Bad: 0
Tags: heavyrain
Largest Hourly Totals
31 Aug 2016 05:23 AMThe deluge of rain Monday afternoon over the southern half of Ames accumulated a record intensity for the site. The featured chart displays the top ten recorded hourly rainfall totals since records began in 1996. Unfortunately, the one minute interval precipitation data is unavailable for the event, so we can't take a closer look at this remarkable intensity.
Voting:
Good: 11
Bad: 0
Tags: heavyrain
Max Hourly Precip Reports
16 Aug 2016 05:27 AMYesterday's IEM Feature denoted the extreme precipitation totals in Louisiana this past weekend. While not to the accumulation extreme seen there, Iowa has seen its share of intense rainfall events this year. The featured chart denotes the largest ten hourly precipitation observations by the Cedar Rapids Airport weather station. These once hourly reports are currently made at :52 minutes after the hour for the previous 60 minute period. This year has two events on the top 10 for the site, including nearly 2 inches late last week. You can generate this chart for other sites in the country to compare.
Voting:
Good: 9
Bad: 0
Tags: heavyrain
20 inches in Two Days
15 Aug 2016 05:38 AMThe big weather story in the US is the historic flooding ongoing in Louisiana. The rainfall reports over this past weekend are mind blowing. The featured chart presents one minute precipitation from the Lafayette, LA ASOS site. Almost 21 inches of rain is shown over just a two day period! The blue, tan, and red lines present some metrics on how fast the rain was falling over this period. Just a whole lot of rain falling over an extended period of time!
Voting:
Good: 11
Bad: 0
Tags: heavyrain
Nine Inches!
29 Aug 2015 06:48 AMSlow moving and very efficient storms were able to dump tremendous amounts of rain over portions of central Iowa. The featured map displays the combination of MRMS precipitation estimates and Local Storm Reports of precipitation relayed by the NWS. Two reports of 9+ inches of rain were received just to the northwest of Ames. All of this rain does not bode well for flooding in Ames, which is forecasted to occur today.
Voting:
Good: 15
Bad: 8
Abstain: 3
Tags: heavyrain
Big Ames Rainfall
11 Aug 2015 04:57 AMFolks in Ames woke up Sunday morning to a surprising amount of rainfall produced by very efficient and rather quiet storms during the early morning hours. The featured chart presents the one minute interval rainfall reports from the Ames Airport. Between about 2:30 and 4:30 AM, a majority of the reported four inches fell. The automated weather sensor only briefly reported "thunder in the vicinity" during this event, so the quiet nature of the storm likely meant that most people slept through it and awoke to a full rain gauge!
Voting:
Good: 20
Bad: 8
Abstain: 7
Tags: heavyrain
Big Rainfall Event
25 Jun 2015 05:34 AMNumerous rounds of heavy rainfall producing thunderstorms have left some gaudy totals over central Iowa. The featured map displays estimated 48 hour rainfall totals from the NOAA MRMS project. A few reports have already trickled in this morning of between six and seven inches within just the past 24 hours. Flooding and Flash Flooding is definitely a concern as these heavy rainfall patterns are oriented in a NW to SE line, which matches the orientation of most river basins in the state.
Voting:
Good: 70
Bad: 8
Abstain: 5
Tags: heavyrain
New York's Record Rainfall
14 Aug 2014 06:05 AMIntense Flash Flooding has impacted the eastern United States this week. A truly epic amount of rain fell in Islip, New York on Wednesday with a 24 hour total of 13.57 inches likely breaking the state's all time precipitation record. The featured chart displays the one minute interval precipitation data for the ASOS site. The instantaneous rainfall rates were sustained at over four inches an hour for two hours! The IEM has documented other heavy rainfall events over the past years from the ASOS sensors and this event is remarkable because the instantaneous rates were so consistent. Other events typically had very short duration intensities over 10 inches per hour. The "generate this chart" button provides the raw data for this chart.
Voting:
Good: 17
Bad: 2
Abstain: 4
Tags: heavyrain
Quick Inch
03 Jul 2014 05:40 AMThe most recent storm system on Monday brought large hail, damaging winds and some intense rainfall. The featured chart displays 30 minutes worth of one minute interval precipitation from the Cedar Rapids Airport. Just under an inch fell between 2:45 and 3 PM, which makes for an approximate four inches per hour rate! The storm system had a fast forward propagation rate, so rainfall totals did not get out of hand for this event.
Voting:
Good: 32
Bad: 16
Abstain: 24
Tags: heavyrain
Training Thunderstorms
05 Jun 2014 05:46 AMThe featured chart displays one minute interval precipitation from the Lamoni Airport weather station Tuesday evening. In total, over five inches of rainfall was reported by the sensor for the day. This large total of rainfall was thanks to thunderstorms that "trained" over the location during the evening. Just as train cars pass over the same point along the tracks, so too can thunderstorms behave like this when the winds in the atmosphere are oriented in such a conducive way. The chart shows the intense rainfall rates spike with each passing storm over a number of hours for the event.
Voting:
Good: 15
Bad: 6
Abstain: 6
Tags: heavyrain
Quick Three Inches
23 May 2014 05:37 AMThe rainfall on Tuesday evening for Ames came very quickly as shown by the featured chart of one minute interval precipitation from the airport weather sensor. The chart displays extrapolated rainfall rates based on the one minute data over different periods. Thankfully, the most intense rainfall rates only last for a few minutes, but they accumulate quickly. The three inches of rain came in a period of less than 45 minutes! For Iowa and flat topography, this is about as intense a rainfall as we can get.
Voting:
Good: 62
Bad: 24
Abstain: 28
Tags: ames heavyrain
Oklahoma City Extreme Rainfall Rate
27 Jul 2013 08:52 AMWhile rain has been difficult to come by in July for Iowa, Oklahoma has seen plenty of it. The featured chart is of one minute interval precipitation for Oklahoma City ASOS on Friday showing extremely intense rainfall. The 5:16 AM minute accumulation was 0.3 inches of rain, which extrapolated to an hour yields a rate of 18 inches! For a rain gauge with a tipping bucket mechanism, this means a tip every 2 seconds! Sadly, OKC's daily total is more rainfall than most of Iowa has seen this July.
Voting:
Good: 95
Bad: 5
Tags: rain heavyrain
Chariton Deluge
21 Jul 2013 03:58 PMRain is at least falling in parts of the state this Sunday, but some locations picked up a bit too much rain in a little time. The featured chart is of one minute interval precipitation from the Chariton SchoolNet site showing 3.5 inches of rain falling in just an hour. The plot also shows extrapolated hourly rates over different periods of periods. For example, the peak hourly rate over an one minute period was over eight inches! Of course, the most intense rates do not last that long.
Voting:
Good: 48
Bad: 2
Tags: heavyrain
2.38 inches in 26 minutes
06 Aug 2012 03:47 AMAn intense cluster of thunderstorms rolled through Iowa on Saturday bringing much needed rainfall to lucky portions of the state. The rainfall was quite intense for some as shown by the featured graph of one minute interval rainfall from the Davenport Airport site. 2.38 inches of rainfall was reported between 1:37 and 2:03 PM on Saturday. The black line shows the one minute intensities extrapolated to an hourly rate. The green line is the same extrapolation, but over a 15 minute trailing window. Unfortunately, intense rains like this probably included significant run-off instead of soaking into the ground. The water did not disappear though so rivers and lakes benefited from this event as well.
Voting:
Good: 72
Bad: 12
Tags: heavyrain
Heavy rainfall for Miami
25 May 2012 05:51 AMWhile rainfall has been somewhat difficult to come by this May in Iowa, Miami, Florida had a significant heavy rainfall event on Tuesday totaling 9.70 inches! The featured chart presents the one minute interval precipitation data for that event. The actual hourly rate rate peaked at 4.50 inches! This is an intensity that we don't see in Iowa due to our continental climate. In fact, the 9.7 inch daily total, while only the second largest for Miami in May, is larger than the recorded history records for 95% of the sites in Iowa. Rain chances for Iowa are in the forecast for this Memorial Day weekend along with very warm temperatures into the 90s on Sunday.
Voting:
Good: 62
Bad: 15
Tags: heavyrain
Binghamton's Record Rainfall
10 Sep 2011 06:15 AMThe east coast has been hit very hard by extreme rainfalls from tropical storms. Binghamton, New York set their all time record one day rainfall on Wednesday of 7.49 inches. The featured chart shows the one minute interval rainfall data from the observation site there. A similar chart to this was generated for the other daily records set this year for Dubuque, Chicago, and New York City. There is a very big difference shown by this plot with peak hourly rates in the one to two inches per hour range as compared with double or triple that in the other plots.
Voting:
Good: 13
Bad: 6
Tags: heavyrain
JFK's Record Rainfall
16 Aug 2011 05:58 AMThis summer has seen extremes for lack of rainfall over the southern plains and daily rainfall totals. The featured chart is of one minute interval data from New York City's JFK Airport showing a rainfall total of 7.8 inches on Sunday. While this was the largest daily rainfall total for the airport site, it is not clear if this was the largest total for New York City as the official site is at Central Park.
Voting:
Good: 13
Bad: 4
Tags: heavyrain
Dubuque's Record Rainfall
29 Jul 2011 06:35 AMJust a few days ago, the Chicago O'Hare weather sensor set a local record for daily rainfall total. This time it is Dubuque's turn. The featured chart displays the one minute interval precipitation data from the Dubuque Airport weather sensor. The hourly rainfall rates are presented looking over various windows of time. On a minute by minute basis, the extrapolated hourly rates exceeded 10 inches per hour (0.19 inches in one minute)! Needless to say, this amount of intense rainfall caused a lot of problems in the area. Other (non-official) weather sensors in the area reported upwards of 14 inches of rain from this event!
Voting:
Good: 42
Bad: 11
Tags: heavyrain
Chicago's Record Rainfall
24 Jul 2011 07:39 PMOur atmosphere has been loaded with water recently. When storms form in this environment, they can become very efficient rain producers and dump extreme amounts of precipitation quickly. During just Saturday morning, the weather sensor at the Chicago O'Hare Airport recorded their largest daily rainfall total on record. The featured chart presents the one minute interval precipitation data from the weather sensor and shows computed rainfall rates measured over various intervals of time. The rates over 1 and 15 minute intervals are extrapolated out over the hour for comparison. The actual hourly rates are shown in red. For a minute by minute basis, rainfall rates once exceeded 8 inches per hour (0.14 inches reported in one minute)!
Voting:
Good: 23
Bad: 8
Tags: heavyrain
Inch plus rain events
27 Sep 2010 05:11 AMThis year has certainly seen more than its fair share of heavy rainfall events. The featured chart presents the contribution of daily rainfall events over an inch along with all other rainfall events for Ames. The only other year that compares with this year was the epic summer of 1993. This year has seen one more heavy rainfall event than 1993 and these events (12) have totalled 24.5 inches of rain! No more heavy rainfall events are in the immediate forecast with a prolonged stretch of dry weather expected.
Voting:
Good: 28
Bad: 4
Tags: heavyrain
Wet periods in Iowa History
13 Jul 2010 07:06 AMThe featured chart displays the wettest statewide 31 day periods since the year 1900. According to IEM estimates, there have only been 4 years that have seen at least one 31 day period with over 10 inches of precipitation. The epic year of 1993 had a solid two months of heavy rainfall with the heaviest 31 days shown at 12.26 inches. Two of the past three years have seen a heavy rainfall period with 2008 coming in just slightly ahead.
Voting:
Good: 30
Bad: 2
Tags: heavyrain
Waterloo Event
08 Jul 2010 05:13 AMThe featured map is of rainfall estimates yesterday by the National Mosaic and QPE (NMQ) project for the Waterloo area. Slow moving and efficient rainfall producing storms were able to quickly dump up to 8 inches of rain over portions of southeast Waterloo. The Waterloo Airport (on the other end of town and only about 8 miles away) only reported just over an inch. This sort of extreme small spatial scale variability is common with slow moving storms.
Voting:
Good: 41
Bad: 8
Tags: heavyrain
8+ inches in 1 day!
12 Jul 2006 07:28 AMRainfall estimates for yesterday indicate a small area of Northern Hardin County with over 8 inches of rain. These estimates seem to agree with a 9 inch rainfall report from Popejoy. It will probably be a good while until somebody in the state see that much rain in one day again.
Voting:
Good: 14
Bad: 3
Tags: heavyrain