43
Last month takes 1st place among wettest Septembers in the Valley
YOUNGSTOWN
After a three-month dry spell, the Mahoning Valley is all wet again.
September 2011 ranks as the wettest September on record in the Mahoning Valley with 7.08 inches of rain as of 5:11 p.m. Friday.
The former wettest September was in 1924 with 7.04 inches of rain.
The average September rainfall for the area is 3.89 inches.
While rainfall amounts for June, July and August were all below average this year, the Valley made the top 10 wettest months this year also in February, March, April and May.
As of 5:11 p.m. Friday, 42.24 inches of rain fell on the Valley this year. That’s 12.27 inches more than the normal amount of rain, 29.97 inches, to fall during the first nine months of the year in the area, according to National Weather Service statistics.
The most rain to fall in the Valley during the first nine months of a year is 43.65 inches in 1956, said Sarah Jamison, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Cleveland.
This year has had the second most rainfall for the first nine months, she said.
And more rain is coming with the National Weather Service expecting above-average precipitation through not only through the end of this year but into spring 2012, Jamison said.
Only 2.98 more inches of rain the rest of the year would put 2011 into the record books as the 10th wettest year on record for the Valley.
The record for the wettest year is 1911 with 50.81 inches of rain.
National Weather Service records for rain date to 1896.
The area’s official weather measurements are taken by the NWS at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport in Vienna.