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The Mahoning Valley had about average rainfall in July and August
YOUNGSTOWN
After an exceptionally wet June, the Mahoning Valley had about average rainfall in July and August, but that is somewhat deceiving.
That’s because 2.64 of the 2.83 inches of rain to fall last month happened on three days – 1.41 inches Aug. 10, 0.89 of an inch Aug. 20 and 0.34 of an inch Sunday. That’s 93 percent of total rain for the month from those three days.
The average August rainfall for the area is 3.24 inches.
“The way in which we had the rain is certainly interesting,” said Zach Sefcovic, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Cleveland. “You usually get a couple of dry days [in August] and then a couple of days of rain. It certainly was unusual. We were bone-dry for the month, and it looks average because of only a few days of rain. It was not the widespread rain that we got in June.”
No rain fell during the first nine days of last month, according to weather statistics by the NWS at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport in Vienna, where the area’s weather data is recorded. There were nine other days in August with no rainfall, and besides the three days with the most precipitation, only Aug. 18 had more than 0.02 of an inch of rain for a day and that was just 0.18 of an inch.
“We got our big rainfall on three days, and there were a lot of days where we didn’t get any precipitation,” said Jess Briganti, weather anchor for “WFMJ Today” at 21 WFMJ-TV, The Vindicator’s broadcast partner. “After a washout in June and dry in July, we were even more dry in August.”
It’s also going to be hot and dry the first two weeks of this month, hitting a high of 88 today and staying there through at least Friday, Briganti said.
“It will be hot, humid and dry; well above average temperatures,” she said. “The first week of September will be more like the dog days of summer.”
Like August, July was an unusual month for precipitation even though total rainfall was 4.07 inches, only 0.24 of an inch more than average for the Valley during that month.
July was dry with no rain recorded on 15 of its 31 days, and only six days with more than 0.2 of an inch of rainfall.
Of the 4.07 inches, 80 percent of it fell on three days – 1.68 inches July 14, and 0.63 of an inch on both July 7 and 9.
It was quite different in June, when 9.02 inches of ran fell. That was the third most in the Valley’s recorded weather history, which goes back to 1897.
There were only six days in June without rainfall.