I can’t think of a person I have spoken with lately that hasn’t asked me “When will it end?” Of course, they are talking about the rain. As meteorologists, we often hear complaints about the weather and how unusual it is but most times, it’s really not that unusual. It’s why we tend to favor the term “average” over “normal”. True, it may not be normal to receive three inches of rain in one day but we then often get several dry days and it all averages out. This time though, the complaints about the rain seem justified. We have indeed been very wet with several instances of consecutive rain days.

For example, I’ll use some Charlotte climate data going back to 2014. In the period from December 2014 through February 2015 we averaged 13 days per month with measurable rain but on average we only had three instances with consecutive rain days and rain totals were below average each month. For that same period from 2015 into 2016 we averaged only 10 rain days per month and averaged just under three consecutive rain days. We ended up 1.13 inches below average. For that period from 2016 into 2017 we averaged 13 rain days per month with rain totals near average. Lastly, that same period from 2017 to 2018 we averaged only 10 rain days per month and ended up more than two inches below average.

Then there is this year. In December 2018 we had 14 rain days. We had consecutive rain days six times. We had 6.98 inches of rain. That’s 3.73 inches above average. In January we once again had 14 rain days with consecutive rain days five times. Our monthly total was 1.27 inches above average. Through the 23rd of February we have already had 14 rain days with consecutive rain days four times. The latest was 10 consecutive rain days! We are already 2.52 inches above average for the month and 3.79 inches above for 2019. Add that to the 17.50 inches above average we were in 2018 and we are at a whopping 21.29 inches above average for the last 14 months! Yes, I would say the rain complaints are definitely justified!