IEM Daily Feature
Wednesday, 17 October 2012

Precipitation accumulation

Posted: 17 Oct 2012 05:41 AM

Precipitation comes in various forms and at various rates for Iowa. For this year, precipitation has been difficult to come by. Have we missed out on heavy rainfall events or lots of smaller rainfall events? The featured graph attempts to address this question by showing the accumulated precipitation over increasing daily precipitation. For example during 2012, the total rainfall for daily events less than 0.5 inch has been 15 inches. Restating, 15 inches of rainfall this year has come from daily events of less than 0.5 inches. The flood year of 1993 certainly sticks out on the opposite end of the spectrum. So for 2012, the line would indicate we have missed out on both light and heavy rainfall events.

Voting:
Good = 14
Bad = 5

Tags:   2012   1988   1993