Ketchikan broke a daily rainfall record on Thursday, receiving 4.33 inches of “liquid sunshine”. The previous record for May 1st was 3.68 inches.
Meteorologist Andy Park says the cause was moisture-filled air rising over the mountains.
“At sea level we had a lot of heavy rain which is pretty indicative of the mountains causing the rainfall to come out of that cloud at sea level, not necessarily over the mountains. And so a lot of streams were coming up. Definitely a super impressive event.”
According to climate data, the normal rainfall on May 1 is merely 0.31 inches. Parks say this time of year is considered the “dry” period.
“For this time of year that was definitely a very wet event. Four inches of rain in Ketchikan, not a big deal in the fall. It happens a lot. But this time of year, it’s a little bit more of an impact.”
Park says despite being a wet spring, Southeast is still in a drought.
“Rain’s great but reservoirs bleed that off. You need that snow pack just to continually feed your reservoirs and feed your streams. If you don’t have the snow, and it’s June and we don’t get rain all June. It can be a real problem. So that’s what we’re watching, that’s what we’re looking at. Across the Panhandle, the snow pack is not healthy.”
And snow is not expected any time soon.
Looking at this week’s outlook, Park says today’s storm is the main event for the week, with mainly showers expected to continue through the weekend.
