Heavy Rain in Southern Dauphin County

Here is a quick update from Barstow, CA flying on I-15 from Vegas to LA! If you ain't going 90, you're getting passed! It's also where the cycles pass you on the center white lines....you know the ones that where Commander Cody sings about in The Hot Rod Lincoln that had "them telephone poles looked like a picket fence" and where "the lines on the road just looked like dots."!  Listen below for a blast from the past.

Anyway, as we clutched through the desert and the cloud free skies, I just thought I'd share this one graphic of the rainfall from Saturday (08-06-2011) evening. These are quite impressive 24 hour totals! One loyal reader reported 4.5 inches in Progress during his 24 hour observation!

Then a week later, a similar rainfall event occurred just to our east.  This past Sunday, the south NJ area had their 5th wettest all time rain ever!  It did more damage than Floyd in 1999!  Central PA was lucky to dodge this bullet as many of the local forecasters stated that the heavy rain would be here in our area.  Here is a quick snapshot of Burlington Co. NJ and its 24 hour rainfall totals.  The county of Cumberland, NJ just to the south of this graphic had reported 9.29 " from an official spotter from the NWS.

As for this post, I was unable to troubleshoot when I was out west.  I was also unable to study the weather as much as I like to note the upcoming pattern, etc.  One thing though that I believe will be the case is that the extreme heat is kaput.  The heavy rains of the past 10 days in the east mark the ending of the extreme conditions in terms of heat and very high dewpoints here in the NE and Mid-Atlantic region.  Both the GFS and the Euro show a deep trough over the east 10 days from now.  With another frontal system poised to pass through on Thursday, I don't see any real heat in the next 2 weeks.  Now I know that summer is unwinding, but August at times can be brutal.  I don't really see that the next 2 weeks!  He is the graphic indicating the trough over the eastern USA.

Being unable to troubleshoot this post out west, I did want to share these rain totals with everyone.  While some have a flooded basement, others still needed to water the tomatoes.  It is just the nature of the beast; this summertime convection.  Flash floods are very destructive and with even more development in places where water likes to run, there will be greater amounts of loss of life and property with these sudden rain events.  While out in the deserts of AZ, NV, and CA, many dry washes were quite evident.  However, even being there in the height of the monsoon season, we saw no rain and nary a cloud in the sky.  As the photo below shows, I will still need some time to recoup and get my thoughts together about this crazy phenomena that we call weather.

So for now enjoy your mid week and anytime that remains for many of you away from the "salt mines"!

Smitty

AA:  Heavy rain Saturday (08-06-2011), and then the following Sunday (08-14-2011) and the beautiful CA desert!