Historically, when you look at weather records, October is Central Alabama’s driest month. The average monthly rainfall for October at the Birmingham airport is 3.23”. And the month of October, 2011, has certainly lived up to that reputation.
The total rainfall for October, 2011, is 0.36” which places the month as the tenth driest October on record for Birmingham, ninth if you consider that two months, 1901 and 1924, each say absolutely no rain. Here are the top ten driest months according to National Weather Service data.
Rank Date Monthly Rainfall Total 1 Oct 1924 0.00 2 Oct 1901 0.00 3 Oct 1938 0.05 4 Oct 1991 0.07 5 Oct 1963 0.11 6 Oct 1939 0.17 7 Oct 1953 0.21 8 Oct 1978 0.22 9 Oct 1904 0.24 10 Oct 2011 0.36
It’s also interesting to note that the record rainfall for October in Birmingham is 11.90” which came in 1995. Hurricane Opal was the big contributor to that record.
-Brian-
