Where Do We Stack Up in the Rainfall Department After Cindy’s Rains?

Well, it has been an interesting week tracking Tropical Storm Cindy and its impacts on Alabama. Cindy brought flooding rains to parts of Alabama and many rivers are still in flood across the state.

The Birmingham Airport picked up 5.17 inches of rain from Cindy, a very respectable amount. Usually we are praying for rain this time of year, but now we are sitting on top of 8.62 inch surplus for the year to date since January 1st. But believe it or not, over the past 365 days, Birmingham still has a 1.8 inch deficit!

365 deficit at BHM

The 30 day surplus is now 4.3 inches. The 90 day surplus is now 8.6 inches.

The Airport’s total for the week was actually kind of a median for the area. Parts of Tuscaloosa, southwestern Jefferson, Bibb, Hale and Perry Counties picked up between 8 and 10 inches of rain.

Rainfall over the past seven days across Central Alabama.

RADAR CHECK
A band of light rain that formed this morning is slowly dissipating across North Central Alabama.

The precipitation will die out before a chance to add to our rainfall totals at BHM. But the rain wouldn’t have been attributable to Cindy anyway. In fact, yesterday’s probably weren’t either, but more to the cold front.

This morning’s band of light rain was caused by ascent around 840 millibars or just under 5,000 feet as west northwesterly flow pushed “uphill” from lower height to higher heights. This resulted in a high altostratus cloud deck that was the source for the extra rain. Drier air will move in later today, setting the stage for a beautiful run of weather over the next four days.

Category: Alabama's Weather, ALL POSTS