Day 122: Record Tennessee Rainfall

Posted by on 2 May 2010 | 2 comments

Day 122

Today is Day 2 of VORTEX II.  Unfortunately the weather forced a second consecutive down day.  However, the weather hasn’t been as tranquil elsewhere…

A major flooding situation is underway across a large portion of middle Tennessee and central Kentucky.  The image above is the Nashville, TN radar estimated storm total precipitation.  The maximum value is a whopping 26.20 inches!  Now, radar has a tendency to over estimate precipitation, so the 26 inch total may be a bit excessive.  However, widespread 12+ inches of rain have been reported.  Below is a public information statement issued by the Nashville, TN National Weather Service office discussing the records that were broke over the weekend.

000
NOUS44 KOHX 030017
PNSOHX
TNZ027-040030-

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NASHVILLE TN
717 PM CDT SUN MAY 2 2010

...PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT...

AS OF 700 PM, NASHVILLE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT HAS MEASURED 7.21
INCHES TODAY. THIS BREAKS THE RECORD FOR MOST RAIN IN A SINGLE
CALENDAR DAY IN THE CITY`S HISTORY. THE PREVIOUS RECORD WAS 6.60
INCHES SET ON SEPTEMBER 13, 1979.

THE TWO-DAY RAINFALL TOTAL NOW STANDS AT 13.53 INCHES. THIS
MORE THAN DOUBLES THE PREVIOUS TWO-DAY RECORD OF 6.68 INCHES SET ON
SEPTEMBER 13-14, 1979.

YESTERDAY`S RAINFALL TOTAL OF 6.32 INCHES NOW RANKS AS THE 3RD
GREATEST ONE-DAY RAINFALL TOTAL IN NASHVILLE`S HISTORY.

TWO OTHER RAINFALL RECORDS THAT WERE SET DURING THE 1979 EVENT WERE
ALSO BROKEN TODAY. THE CITY SAW ITS GREATEST RAINFALL IN A SIX-
HOUR PERIOD, 5.57 INCHES. AND THE RECORD FOR MOST RAINFALL IN 12
HOURS ALSO FELL, WITH 7.20 INCHES.

MAY, 2010 NOW RANKS AS THE WETTEST MAY EVER, SURPASSING MAY, 1983,
WHEN 11.04 INCHES WERE MEASURED. AND MAY, 2010 ALREADY RANKS AS
THE FIFTH WETTEST MONTH OVERALL.

$$

ROSE
  • http://www.ou.edu/seds Travis

    That kind of rainfall is very impressive — literally awesome. I’ve been following this event with heightened interest, as I have distant cousins in Munford, TN — about 45 minutes north of Memphis. This link (http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/discussions/nfdscc3.html/) from the HPC, which dosen’t appear to be static (unfortunately), says that in the 51 hour period from the start of the event to the latest update, the town of Atoka (which is located next to Munford) received 15.97 inches of rain. (There were a lot of parenthetical statements in the last sentence, weren’t there?)

    Anyway, I was wondering just how rare an event of this magnitude is. I know it’s something newsworthy, but are we talking once in ten years? A hundred years? 10,000 years? I don’t know how one would find that kind of thing out… thanks!

  • http://www.patricktmarsh.com pmarsh

    Hi Travis,

    It certainly is in the tails of the probability distribution…but how far, I don’t know. I’ll talk to some people and see what I can find today.

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