The last 30 days got more than 7 inches of rain - where that ranks next to Michigan's rainiest Julys
My wife is convinced of it. She, with confidence, declared, "This has got to be the wettest July ever! It's rained like every day!"
While it hasn't rained *every day* it has rained a lot lately (we talked about this last week). I went digging through the records and here is what I found.
The most rain we've ever received in July happened nearly 150 years ago, back in 1878. The monthly total was 8.76 inches of rain. You may be thinking, "Well, come on then! 150 years ago! The technology has changed a lot since then - that can't be an accurate number!"
You'd be wrong.
While rain gauge technology has improved for some sites, the primitive way of just essentially sticking a bucket out there and measuring the amount that fell into it is pretty accurate. Or at least, it isn't *inaccurate*.
Following that year on the list are 2011, 1902, and 1937 with anywhere between 7 and 7.75 inches. That's a lot of rain!
So far this July we've picked up 3.58 inches and are on pace to end up near 4.94 inches when you consider monthly normals. This wouldn't even put us in the top 20 wettest Julys of all time. But you know I'm not letting the data stop me there.
RELATED: Hot afternoon turns into wet evening Tuesday
Mother Nature can't be expected to start and stop wet cycles at the beginning and end of any given month! What I mean by that is, we started getting a ton of rain back in mid-June and kept seeing it until mid-July.
What happens if we went from June 19-July 19? That 30-day stretch is bound to yield more interesting outcomes, right?
Actually, totally right.
From June 19 to July 19 we've received 7.26 inches of rain at Detroit Metro Airport. That 30-day stretch would put us top four in the July list! It becomes even more impressive when you consider that in just two rainstorms alone, Dearborn, downtown Detroit, and Grosse Pointe received over 11 inches of rain!
The 30 day totals in those spots are likely to be closer to 13 inches of rain! We don't have historical records for these specific cities (only the airport has them) nor can we realistically break down every single year's wettest 30-day stretch. But I'm willing to believe 2021 at least belongs in the conversation.
So, at the end of the day, the takeaway is: My wife is right. She's always right