It wasn’t long ago that Centre County was desperate for rainfall, but residents might be pining for a return to those days after a barrage of wet weather in recent weeks.
Just two weeks ago, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection placed Centre County under a drought watch, citing a very dry fall and below-normal precipitation from January to May.
That seems like a distant memory after what has been a very rainy June. In fact, the rain accumulation this month has reached unusual levels.
“Typically in June, we get about 3.75 inches of rain,” says Tom Kines, an Accuweather meteorologist. “This month, we’ve gotten about six inches of rain so far, so we’re way above normal.”
The storm that slowly worked its way through the area over the weekend played a big part in that atypically high number, contributing an average of two inches to that rainfall total Saturday alone. In fact, Saturday’s storm racked up over half of the average rainfall for the entire month of June.
“The actual system itself that came through was much stronger than we normally get this time of year,” Kines says. “It was probably more typical of winter than summer actually.”
What he means is that summer storms typically bring some thunder showers with two or three hours of rainfall. On Saturday, the rain poured down on the region for over half a day.
“The fact that we had that accumulation maybe wasn’t all that uncommon, but what I think was uncommon was the fact that it was a steady rain that lasted between 12 and 15 hours, which we don’t normally see in summertime,” Kines says. “To get an all-day rain like we got yesterday is highly unusual.”
Thanks to yesterday’s storm and a slew of others in the month of June, the drought watch conditions that were announced not long ago seem to be behind us.
“Back in May, it was certainly getting dry, and officially I’m not sure what is going to be done with the drought watch, but the month of June has been a wet month and I have to believe that with the rain we’ve received, it has greatly helped,” Kines says. “You drive around and you’re not going to see any parched lawns right now. Everything is green.”
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