Wednesday, January 02, 2008

A record drought: Birminham, Anniston, Tuscaloosa, Huntsville

Birmingham ended 2007 with the driest year on record. Official records in Birmingham go back 113 years. In 2007, Birmingham had only 28.86 inches of rain according to the Birmingham NWS. I will update this post with more about information later.

Drought in 2007 one for records-Rainfall 2 feet below normal Birmingham News
For 2007, attach the word "epic" to Birmingham's drought. Through Sunday, Birmingham had a scant total of 28.86 inches of rain, and clear skies on Monday assured that the year would wind up as one for the record books. In metro Birmingham, 11 out of the 12 months in 2007 had below-normal rainfalls, with only August getting above-normal rain. Worse, the drought seems to be continuing into this year. "La Nina has set in," said Scott Unger of the Birmingham office of the National Weather Service, referring to a pattern of water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean that affect the U.S. climate. "Unfortunately for the Southeast, in wintertime that climatically means warmer and drier. Other cities in Alabama also saw record drought years, said Unger and Robert Boyd of the Huntsville office of the National Weather Service. With 26.05 inches through Sunday, Tuscaloosa broke a record of 33.6 inches in 1954. Anniston's 22.39 inches through Sunday broke the record low rainfall of 27.91 in 1986. And Huntsville's rainfall of 28.65 through Sunday broke the record of 37.18 inches in 1925 and 37.45 inches in 1930. "So we blew that record away," Boyd said of Huntsville. "We almost nuked it."

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