August rainfall shatters records
FILE PHOTO
Flood waters roar down Peach Creek at Judah Park in Maryville, during an almost 7-inch downpour in mid-August that pushed total rainfall for the month into record-breaking territory. August of 2014 will go down as the wettest August on record and the second-wettest month since at least 1918, trailing only July of 1993 as the wettest month ever in recorded Nodaway County history.
August may not have been the wettest month on record in Nodaway County, but it didn’t miss by very far.
According to records maintained by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency office in Maryville, the total rainfall for last month was 15.19 inches, as recorded at the FSA office at 502 W. South Hills Dr.
That total is 4.17 inches less than the monthly accumulation for August recorded at the City of Maryville’s water treatment facility located at 3613 E. First.
“And that is not surprising to me at all,” said Tim Dreier, executive director of the FSA office in Maryville. “They are clear across town from where we are and the rainfall amounts can vary that much, that’s for sure.
“We have employees and committeemen who live in various parts of the county and the differences are surprising sometimes,” he said.
The most serious rain during the past month came on Aug. 16 when 6.25 inches was registered at the FSA office. The average across the county for that recording period was 5.48 inches.
An additional 3.72 inches of rain fell Aug. 28.
Based on the generally higher reported amounts of rainfall from the city’s water treatment facility, total precipitation through August totals 39.8 inches for 2014, compared to the 30-year average for Maryville of 25.57 inches for the January-through-August time frame.
The eight-month total based on the FSA reports is 33.73 inches, still within three inches of the expected 12-month total, based on the average of the past 30 years.
There is still a long way to go to reach the all-time record for a year’s rainfall, however.
That total was reached in 1993 when 25.71 inches of rain during the month of July, an all-time monthly record, pushed the annual total for that year to an almost incomprehensible 63.45 inches.
The second wettest year on record for Nodaway County, at least since 1918, according to records maintained for the FSA by the national Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow network, was 48.92 inches in 1982.
The third wettest year on record is the 47.95 inches totaled in 1973.
This past August exceeded the previous high total for that month by more than two and a half inches. Prior to this year, the most rain recorded during August was 12.49 inches that fell during 2006.
Total rainfall for Nodaway County has exceeded 40 inches in 19 different years since 1918, most recently in 2009 when a yearly total of 44.23 inches was recorded.
July of 1993 is the all-time monthly leader, and it was almost disastrous to the construction of the earthen dam at Mozingo Lake Recreation Park. Torrential rains that totaled as much as a foot of accumulation over the Fourth of July weekend had threatened to wash out the still-under-construction dam.
Portions of the project were damaged as the water backed up into the yet-to-be completed lake and water did eventually spill across the top of the dam. Full pool for the completed lake is registered at 1,060.5 feet.
Despite the excessive amounts of rain over the past 30 days, Dreier said the crop prospects remain “good, maybe as good as we’ve ever seen.
”It just depends on who you talk to, and where in the county they live,” he said.
Dreier said there have been some reports of sudden death syndrome in soybeans in the county, “and some of the corn is hurting to some extent.
“From the east side of the county to the west side, there is quite a difference.”
