When you think of southern Florida, you
think of a tropical
climate...
with year-round warm weather, exotic flora and fauna, beautiful
beaches that seem to go on forever, and copious amounts of rain. So
when a tropical location like Miami nearly breaks its all-time record
annual rainfall total, that's really a LOT of rain.
There are essentially just two seasons
in Miami: the drier cooler winter (approximately November through
April) and the humid hot summer (approximately May through October).
Climatologically, about 75% of the city's rainfall comes during the
summer, and the average annual total rainfall is 61.9”. This
map shows the average precipitation across the country so you can
find your favorite city (the averages used throughout the post are
the standard 1981-2010 “climate normals”, and the rainfall
amounts listed for Miami are from the Miami International Airport).
This year, while a huge
portion
of
the
country
suffered from extreme drought conditions, Miami got off to a wet
start, and it just kept coming. By the beginning of April, Miami was
at 125% of average rainfall, and by the beginning of July, up to 174%
and the second wettest year on record for the January through June
period. For the January through September period, Miami's 2012 total
rainfall was 79.5”, the wettest such period on record by a healthy
margin. At year's end, it's at 86.94”, or 140%
of average... very close to breaking the record of 89.33” set in
1959. By the way, 87" is 7'3" for those who think better in feet.
The chart below shows these periods and
annual totals graphically going back to 1949*. The annual total is
shown in cumulative quarterly increments. The first three months are
denoted by the purple bars, the first six months by the green bars,
the first nine months by the yellow bars, and finally, the full year
by the top of the red bars.
Zooming in to just 2012 and plotting
the daily cumulative rainfall amounts against the climate normal
clearly shows that from May onward, Miami remained well above
average, and frequent events maintained and grew the gap.
* 1949 is used as the start of the data period due to availability and station relocation. See the first data source below.
Data sources:
http://www.sercc.com/cgi-bin/sercc/cliMAIN.pl?fl5663
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/climate/index.php?wfo=mfl
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/mfl/?n=cliplot
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