Saturday, June 01, 2019

The U.S. Just Had Its Wettest 12 Months on Record

Shallow groundwater wetness percentile (Credit: e360.yale.edu) Click to Enlarge.
The continental United States just experienced its wettest 12 months on record, receiving 6.25 inches of rainfall above the mean, according to a new report by NASA’s Earth Observatory.  The finding comes amid weeks of record-setting floods throughout much of the central United States.

From May 1, 2018 to April 30, 2019, the contiguous U.S. averaged 36.20 inches of precipitation ― more than half an inch higher than the previous record-setting year (April 2015 to March 2016) and the most in 124 years of modern record-keeping.  Ten U.S. states had their wettest 12 months on record, with the highest precipitation rates in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest regions.  According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, just 2.33 percent of the continental U.S. was in drought at the end of April, compared to nearly 30 percent at the same time last year.

Read more at The U.S. Just Had Its Wettest 12 Months on Record

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