Pittsburgh region on track to break yearly rainfall record
The Pittsburgh region is on track to break a record Monday that promoters won’t brag about — more rain.
An estimated 57.83 inches is expected to fall in 2018, the most in any year since 1937 when the National Weather Service started keeping track annually.
The Pittsburgh region will likely beat the rainfall record holder — 2004, at 57.41 inches, bolstered by Hurricane Ivan — without so much a hurricane but a couple of soggy, record-making months.
As of Sunday evening, the Pittsburgh region was shy by only one-third of an inch of rain to break the 2004 record, according to Michael Brown, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Moon.
They forecast about three-quarters of an inch of rain starting around 10 a.m. Monday, which should easily best the record, Brown said. Temperatures will start off in the 30s and warm up, hitting the lower 50s by the evening.
Although 2018 precipitation will likely just break the 2004 record by less than an inch on the last day of the year, it was still much wetter than previous record holders.
According to the National Weather Service, the wettest years on record since 1837 are 2018 at an estimated
57.83 inches; 2004 at 57.41 inches; 1990 at 52.24 inches; 1890 at
50.61 inches and 1865 at
50.50 inches.
Testament to the soggy
2018 in Pittsburgh was the setting of a new monthly
record for the most precipitation in February with
7.04 inches. The previous record was 6.52 inches set in 1887, according to the National Weather Service.
Then to keep up the dreariness later in the year, 8.5 inches of rain fell in September in the Pittsburgh region, setting a record for the third wettest September on the books.
The normal annual rainfall for the Pittsburgh region is 37.7 inches, according to the NWS. Last year’s rainfall total was 41.9 inches — more than normal, but far less than 2018.
Mary Ann Thomas is a
Tribune-Review staff writer.
You can contact Mary Ann at 724-226-4691, mthomas@tribweb.com
or via Twitter @MaThomas_Trib.
