An astute observation from this reporter’s favorite Starbucks barista prompted a follow-up for Skot Covert, 5NEWS’ chief meteorologist:
“Has it been raining a lot recently?”
The short answer is “yes.” The long answer is also “yes” and includes cool graphs.
Skot Covert
Weather Notes from Covert:
Interestingly, in the first few months of the year, NWA was running well below average in terms of rainfall. Portions of NWA were starting to experience drought (remember the wildfires we had?).
However, in early April, we started trending above average and have pretty much kept running above average since then.
Year to date, we’re running 4.44” ahead of “normal” rainfall (with “normal” defined as a rolling 30-year average).
Looking at the timeframe from April 1 to June 18, this period ranks as the 21st wettest out of 133 years on record for NWA.
It hasn’t just been rainy — it’s been stormy!
In April, Benton County was under some type of severe weather risk on 18 out of 30 days. In May, it was 23 out of 31 days. And so far in June, there has been a chance of thunderstorms on all but three days.
Bottom line: Yes! It’s been a very wet and stormy spring.