The District has seen more rain in 2018 than it has in more than 100 years.
National Weather Service officials announced Saturday that Ronald Reagan National Airport has recorded 61.34 inches of rain this year – up a hundredth of an inch from D.C.’s previous record set in 1889, WTOP reported Saturday. The record followed a series of heavy rains and flood warnings in D.C., Maryland and Virginia over the past week.
Last month, D.C. trailed the 1889 record by about two inches. Over the past 150 years, the nation’s capital has typically seen fewer than 40 inches of rain annually, and more than 50 inches of rain has been considered “well above normal,” according to WTOP.
The District last approached the 1889 record in 2003 with 60.83 inches of rain.
“Another interesting thing about this year’s rainfall was that it didn’t really just come from one or two or three events — it was very evenly distributed pretty much through the year,” Chris Strong, a National Weather Service meteorologist, told WTOP. “Most months that we had were above normal in terms of rainfall.”