2008 Record Summer Rain
Photo: StarbuckGuy's photostream
Last night's storm brought the City closer to a new record high summer rainfall. We're now certain to surge past the 28-year old record of 1980 with rain in the forecast through to the weekend.
The previous record for the months of June and July was 271.5 mm. Surpassing this level, we are well above average rainfall levels for the region (last year over the whole summer we had 88 mm). Interestingly, back in 1980 a good chunk of the rainfall was in the last week of July!
City infrastructure is struggling to handle the heavy volumes of storm water runoff. Storms at a level causing flooding apparently only happens about once every two years, but this year has hit five times. The severe thunderstorm on Tuesday night brought several traffic accidents, knocked out signal lights and caused flooding in the downtown and York areas. Surely there are going to be more reports of flood basements.
Gardeners are probably loving the contrast to last year's dry summer, with the City looking green as ever. Funny, last weekend while visiting my grandma outside of London (Ontario), she was complaining about how dry it has been lately, in a backdrop of browning lawns.
Comments (13)
Just before last night's deluge, I saw that big yellow City tanker on Lakeshore, washing the roadway around Sunnyside!
Perhaps they were priming the sewers?
Global Warming doesn't just mean hotter temperatures; it also means more extreme weather, such as the storms we've been experiencing, drought just a few kilometers away, more hurricanes, etc. This summer, I fear, is only the beginning of the new kind of weather patterns we will experience.
I need to move out of this city. Longest, biggest snowfall of a winter, and record breaking rainfall in the SUMMER.
Are we not allowed a summer?
Are you forgetting the brutal heat that preceded this rain?
Like Shelagh said, it's the sudden variations (i don't want to call them extreme, i'm sure that will come sooner or later) that are annoying.
Let's not forget the summer after the Mt. Pinatubo eruption.
The summer following the eruption, we had 19 out of 20 weekends with precipitation. That was the barbecue and gardening and golfing season ruined for all and sundry.
Wrath of Zeus!! We just broke the record: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080723.wrain0724/BNStory/National/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20080723.wrain0724
For the year with record braking snow fall and rain, it really sucks to have a leaky roof. Plz Shoot my roofer.
I play in a Baseball league.
I could have told you that. And I would have been right. 10+ years of playing ball, never had a schedule so messed up.
It's late July, we went through all the heat, and now all the rain, and the "snow mountain" by six-points junction (Bloor, Kipling, Dundas) in Etobicoke is _still_ around...
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