Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Another week, another record rainfall.

On July 22nd between 7:30-7:45 pm 23.0 mm of rain fell.

That is the highest 15 minute rainfall we have recorded in the 10 year history of the UW weather station.

The previous record was 16.2 mm on June 27, 1999.

We also set an hourly record with 34.4 mm coming down between 7:15-8:15 pm.

That just surpassed the 33.9 mm on May 2, 2000.

By the way, I don't know how far back these records go, as they don't keep 15 minute data at the Waterloo-Wellington airport and I don't have their hourly data.

Not a record, but also interesting is that the temperature dropped 6.2°C between 7:15-7:45 pm.

On a personal note I happened to be biking just as the storm hit (I really should have checked the radar before I left) so I ended up watching the record rainfall from the (partial) shelter of one of the RIM buildings.

6 comments:

Mirkle said...

I watched the storm come in and I think I may have seen a funnel cloud! Watching storms roll in from my 12th floor balcony is pretty awesome, must say. I took pictures of what it looked like outside when we were getting that record 15 minute rainfall and all you can see is grey and a few streetlights. I definitely haven't seen rain this intense before!

Unknown said...

I swear to God that was either a tornado or a downburst.

I was watching the storm from a bedroom window and just outside that window to the left is an eavestrough downspout.

The wind didn't tip or bend or knock that pipe over: it pulled it STRAIGHT OUT from the wall and tossed it away.
(Which scared the hell out of me cause I've never seen anything like that before.)

And that rain was something else:
I've never seen rain falling so hard that it looked just like blowing snow during a whiteout.

Dan said...

Very spectacular rain. Our rain running club had another successful meeting, the longest of the year so far.

Anonymous said...

Those clouds were intimidating for sure, the way they were swirling around. I grabbed an umbrella and a video camera and ran out, but the umbrella only lasted a moment.

Anonymous said...

I am very convinced by now that we are really making up for the low precipitation of last year.

Alyssa said...

I also live on the 11th floor of an apartment and I couldn't see the building across the street from me;
Pretty neat stuff to see!