2.7-inch Greencastle rain puts 2012 on wettest August list

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

The on-again, off-again August rain seems to be putting the drought of 2012 in the rearview mirror in Putnam County.

Yards have been greening back up. Dandelions have even been spotted sprouting up in Greencastle lawns.

And why not, through Tuesday, the Greencastle area has now received a reported 7.21 inches of rainfall during the first 28 days of August.

That inflated figure is partly due to a 2.71-inch "rain event" reported Tuesday by local weather watcher Diana Foust.

Her Greencastle gauges recorded 1.7 inches of rain between Sunday night and the 7 a.m. reporting time on Monday. The rain, of course, continued into Monday afternoon, adding an additional 1.01 inches when she calculated totals again at 7 a.m. Tuesday.

That 7.21-inch month-to-date total represents more than twice the average annual rainfall for August (typically 3.13 inches), traditionally one of central Indiana's driest months.

With three days to go before the calendar flips to September, August 2012 already stands as the fifth-wettest August on record, according to National Weather Service figures.

However, central Indiana remains approximately 7.5 inches of rainfall below average for the year.

The wettest August was recorded in 1980 with 8.34 inches of rain, followed by 1989 at 8.05 inches, 1976 at 7.95, and 1921 with 7.26 inches of rain recorded.

Conversely, 2010 produced the driest August on record at just 0.37 inches of rainfall in the area.

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