A Month of Rainfall

One of our readers requested a map showing the rainfall for the last month. Because the National Weather Service's computes weekly rainfall as of 7am CDT on Saturdays, here is the rainfall for the 31 days ending Saturday, August 17.

From AccuWeather, click to enlarge

And, here is a closeup of the area with the heaviest rains which fell from central Kansas to the Ozarks.

These amounts truly are extraordinary. While I do not believe there is an official record category for "mid-summer rainfall," if there was I believe this would be a record.

As of Saturday, here is the amount of rain-- above the normal amount -- needed to break the drought. White areas are drought-free according to the Palmer Drought Index.

ADDITION 2:41pm CDT:

Courtesy of Dr. Ryan Maue, here is the European Model's 10-day rainfall forecast. He noted the zero over Kansas and Oklahoma.