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 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.
“I do not have an explanation for the weather systems that caused the heavy precipitation, but sea surface temperatures in the western Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico have been generally well above normal over the past year,” climatologist Ken Kunkel said in a statement . “This has surely added to the atmospheric water vapor content available to the precipitating weather systems.”
Read more at Yale Environment 360
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