17 May 2014
Thursday afternoon it rained like this for about an hour. Additional rain fell all day giving us 1.10 inches, a new record for May 15 in Pittsburgh.
The rain messed up rush hour and now the Ohio River is close to flood stage, but this is minor compared to the April 29-30 rain event in Pensacola, Florida when they received an amazing 10-15 inches in 9 hours, a total of 22 to 26 inches for the period.
Precipitation in Pittsburgh feels abnormal this spring. Aren’t we wetter than usual this year? No. The rain gauge is less than 1/2 inch above normal since January 1. The real difference is that the rain falls all at once.
We’ll have to get used to frequent heavy downpours, a hallmark of climate change in the northeastern U.S. Click here to read more.
(photo of rain in Ukraine by Pridatko Oleksandr via Creative Commons license Wikimedia Commons)
I hope a lot of people are thinking about the weather, the cause and what we need to do.
Forget oil pipelines, we need water pipelines out here in the West.