Interesting article in the Birmingham News this morning concerning rainfall for Central Alabama. I thought it might be a good idea to go over the “normals” or 30-year averages of rainfall as tabulated by the National Weather Service (NWS) for the Birmingham Airport.
I think most people are aware that March is our wettest month and October is our driest month. But the standing of those other middle months sometimes throws people off. For example, not too many people would pick July at being one of the area’s wetter months. I think much of that standing probably comes from the effects of slow moving tropical systems. After all, the record 24-hour rainfall for Birmingham came in a tropical system, Hurricane Ivan, in 2004. And Ivan wasn’t a particular slow moving storm.
So here’s the list based on data acquired from the climate data published by the NWS.
| 1 | Mar | 6.10″ |
| 2 | Jan | 5.45″ |
| 3 | Jul | 5.09″ |
| 4 | May | 4.83″ |
| 5 | Apr | 4.67″ |
| 6 | Nov | 4.63″ |
| 7 | Dec | 4.47″ |
| 8 | Feb | 4.21″ |
| 9 | Sep | 4.05″ |
| 10 | Jun | 3.78″ |
| 11 | Aug | 3.48″ |
| 12 | Oct | 3.23″ |
We are certainly much better off this year than last year, but until we have several years of above average rainfall, it is going to be tough to say that we are out of the drought. Once you get more than 2 feet down, it’s hard to come back with just slightly above average rainfall even for several months.
The long range outlook for June-July-August is for about average rainfall with equal chances of above or below normal. And scattered showers won’t do it.
Now I do not say this to make the people along the coast mad at me. But what could really help the drought conditions is to get a weak tropical system, something without much wind and storm surges so that the coastal areas are beat up – something like a tropical depression – that would move slowly and produce several days of steady rain over the Southeast. I do not want destruction – just some weather system that would bring a sustained period of rain. A nice weak tropical depression would do that. That kind of scenario would not solve or eliminate the drought, but it would certainly help to replenish what we lost in 2007.
So there’s the skinny on rainfall for now. And there is nothing on the immediate horizon to do much for our water situation.
-Brian-
