Britley Ritz

Dayton International Airport has reported nearly 6 inches of rain since the start of August. Our monthly average is roughly 3 inches and we've already surpassed that.

The wettest August on record was in 1974 reaching 8.03" of rain.

Now now... We have more rain through the weekend and well... we're only half way through the month.

WHY ARE WE GETTING SO MUCH RAIN?
Let's get real technical here.

We have A LOT of moisture in the air. Dew points have been in the 70s. We have what meteorologists call "Monsoonal Flow" circulating around a massive area of high pressure placed perfectly in the center of the United States. This phrase is a wind that brings warm, wet air from the south and places it nearby. So we usually have a south or southwest wind.

Areas of low pressure build along this stalled boundary and ride along it, one right after the next.

WHAT HAPPENED ACROSS EASTERN INDIANA YESTERDAY?
Why so much rain in one sitting?

The air was already worked over here in the Miami Valley. So... the storms that fired up near Chicago and nothern Indiana traveled toward the energy it could find.

Why the training?
There are parallel winds, upper winds match the direction of the storm boundary. There wasn't any movement due to weak steering winds to push the storms away. And the warm, wet air acted as continuous fuel. PLUS old outflow boundars (cold air rushing out front previous storms) can trap new rain.