Last Tuesday we saw our first widespread rain event in many weeks. But the bulk of the rain was confined to the Catskills and NW portions of the region. The result was that despite some rainfall… the drought conditions EXPANDED last week. Much of the area east of the Hudson River is now in a ‘Severe Drought’, while the rest of the valley is in a ‘Moderate Drought’.
We did an analysis of the Hudson Valley’s rainfall over several different periods of time. We looked at the last week, the last 30 days, last 90 days, and the year as a whole. We listed the average Poughkeepsie rainfall over each period, and the map shows roughly how much rain (precipitation) actually fell. The Poughkeepsie area has seen between 20% and 40% of what we would expect in an ‘average’ year. For instance over the last 30 days… Poughkeepsie should see about 4.2 inches of rain. Instead, only 1.08″ of rain fell. About 23% of average. You can also see just how dry it has been for the entire year, which does not look as bad, because through April, we were near average.
But there is some relief on the way.
SUMMARY/TImeline:
Sunday & Sun night; Scattered showers & T-Storms
Monday: Scattered showers become widespread during afternoon
Mon night / Tue AM : Periods of rain, possibly heavy at times.
A frontal boundary will set up over the northeast and the Hudson Valley, and give us about a 48 hour window for rain. The first chance comes Sunday afternoon and evening, in the form of scattered showers and T-Storms. The chances are about 50/50. But then on Monday a more widespread area of rain showers should develop. At first it will be north of the Hudson Valley, gradually sinking southward, into the valley. Periods of scattered showers are expected through Labor Day Monday… especially the afternoon hours. It appears that a more defined area of steady rain may settle in for Monday evening through Tuesday morning… during which time much of the area could get a soaking rainfall. A look at the NWS rainfall projection map, much of the area is expecting to see between 1 and 2 inches (locally up to 3 inches) of rain… and some recent guidance is trending on the higher end of those amounts. We’ll keep our eyes on the details as they become clearer… but it looks like a widespread soaking rainfall is heading our way.
Thank you. Usually you get a ton of comments during snow storms. I figured you needed some thanks for this info as well.