Monday, May 2, 2011

Rain

Well it has certainly been a long week.  So much to talk about that has gone on in the past week but I promise to keep my rant short.  I could talk about the devastation of my home state Alabama, my prayers and thoughts got out to my southern friends and family, or I could talk about Donald Trump being put in his place about President Obama being born in Hawaii, but I wont bore you with that one either.  I’m not even going to talk about the death of Bin Laden(finally). No, no, I’ll keep it simple.
    Yes I have mentioned that it has rained here for the past month but I wasn’t sure how much it had really rained until today. Curious until I couldn’t stand it anymore I decided to dig up some numbers and this is what I came up with. Let me first touch on the subject the major cities with the most rainy days versus the cities with the most rainfall. Obviously most rainy days is just that.  Out of the year how many days is there precipitation(rain and snow). Out of the major cities in the USA  the top of the list is Buffalo, New York raining an average of 166 days out of the year.  I assumed it would have been a west coast city like Seattle which ranked number four with 154 days, still a lot.  Columbus, Ohio ranked a little lower at number seven averaging 138 days out of the year.  In the month of April, Columbus sees an average of 14-15 days of rain. But for 2011 it brought much more raining a total of 25 days out of 30.  Needless to say, I didn’t get out much.
    Now what major cities see the most precipitation.  Well, New Orleans toped that list with 64.2 inches averaged yearly and Birmingham, Alabama see an average of 54 inches yearly, ranked at number four, Miami, Florida and Memphis, Tennessee in the second and third spot of major cities.  Again, I was surprised a west cost city wasn’t at number one.  With Columbus averaging at 38.5 inches yearly and only 3.3 inches in April, we totaled 7.14 inches this April, double the average and a new record.  The previous being set in 1893 at 7.08 inches.  That’s a lot of rain in one month.
    Again this is data from major cities alone, but what is truly the wettest area in the United States. MT. Washington, New Hampshire takes the cake averaging 101.9 inches yearly and 209 days of rain/snow. They also averaged the most cloudy days at 244 days with thick cloud cover. Wow, still surprised not a west coaster took that one.  A little more weather records;  Prospect, Alaska dipped down to a brisk -80 degrees Fahrenheit in 1971 to take the coldest and Greenland Ranch, California took the hottest at 134 degrees in 1913.  Driest is Las Vegas with 4.5 inches of rainfall a year and sunniest is Yuma, Arizona with 90% of sunshine a year.  Georgetown, Colorado takes the snowiest  with 63 inches.  A bit of information that is both useless and interesting(at least to me) at the same time. So, for my challenge this week, stay dry.
    People say that weather affects the mood, I hope it gets sunny and warm in the south soon because they need it more than I do.  Until next week, whether your in the south, north, east, or west, keep your hope strong because there are sunnier skies yet to come, literally and figuratively.
  

“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.”                                                           -Helen Keller

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