Already a rainfall record

It's official. August 2011 isn't even over - and Hurricane Irene is a couple days away - but it has gone into the books as the wettest month on record in Philadelphia.

Rainfall today - 0.11 of an inch as of 5 p.m. - pushed this month's total to 13.11 inches, surpassing the previous record of 13.07 inches set in September 2009.

The old statistic was driven largely by Hurricane Floyd, which dumped six inches of the total by itself.

This year, by contrast, the inundation has been more or less spread out, although there have been pockets of hurricane-like rainfalls, without the accompanying hurricane-force winds.

But now an actual hurricane is headed our way and officials are warning the storm named Irene could dump up to 7 inches of rain on the city this weekend.

So by the end of the month, the new rainfall record for any given month could be more than 20 inches, nearly half the amount of rain that falls in an average year.

   Inquirer Staff