Flash flood

Yesterday I posted that I had 30mm of rain on the 28th May and I was't sure if this was accurate. Good old Kennyboy challenge this number and said it was false and that the neighbour must have put the hope pipe in the sensor! With the bucket some 15 foot in the air and a hose pipe ban I thought this was unlikely but his comment made me do some research! The link below says it all really there were flash floods in Medway on this day. Unfortunately I was away at work and so could't verify but wife said it rained hard!

http://www.kentonline.co.uk/medway_messenger/news/2012/may/29/floods.aspx

So how Hard did it rain? I've looked back over the last 7 years of data and there has only been 6 days where it has rained over 23mm and only one day where it rained more than 30mm. This was on the 27th June 2009, on this day it rained a total of 30.2mm. So the chances of it raining more than or equal to 30mm is 0.08%

Also in 2009 it rained 30.2mm in a space of 90 minutes, this year the rain was over 45minutes so the rain must have been really hard. If you look at the table below the rain rates where much higher than in 2009

Overall then a rare occurrence which has meant that May's rain levels ended up above average even though we are still in a middle of a drought!

Quick update

So firstly how's the drought going? Actually May looked liked the rain was going to be below average as it never rained for nearly 2 weeks. From the 16th May through to the 28th May there was not one drop of rain! then on the 28th May we had 30 mm of rain in one day which took the rain levels well above average. 30mm of rain is really exceptional.

How about Temperatures? Interestingly so far in 2012 we have had 3 of the months at below average temperatures. May was just below average at 0.01 degrees cooler than average even though the press has been full of articles stating how warm it has been. There were some days above 25 degrees and the last 10 days of the month was generally nice and warm, it was warm enough for I to consider putting the air con on. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the year pans out!