Rockford Has Doubled The Average June Rainfall Totals
If you've had to dump out your rain gauge several times this month, it's because June 2018 is now among the top 5 wettest Junes ever in the Rockford area.
The wettest June we've ever had here in the Rockford area was a quarter century ago in 1993. The rainfall total for June of that year was 11.85 inches.
With a bit less than half a month to go, we're already at (as of Tuesday night) 9.33 inches, so we may break (or more accurately, drown) the previous record before we're done. We average 4.65 inches in June.
13 WREX Meteorologist Alex Kirchner posted some interesting numbers on their website:
The amount of water that fell in Winnebago County Monday night was staggering. The 3-5" that fell within a few hours translates to 27 trillion gallons of water, or 3.6 trillion cubic feet. If 593,000 cubic feet of water is discharged from the Mississippi River every second, then 70 days' worth of water from the Mississippi hit Rockford and Winnebago county Monday evening.
My memory of June 1993 pretty much consists of being hunched over a ShopVac in my basement for hours on end.
No need to go through all that again, thanks.
Meanwhile, have a look at one of the more intriguing aspects of storm activity (Warning: Some language is NSFW. That's because people have a tendency to swear when several million volts are unleashed right next to them):