First Alert Weather In-Depth: Feast or famine when it comes to rainfall

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Here is the question: Over the last few months, if you look in the rain gauge, how much precipitation did we measure? In other words, has it been a wet couple of months in Rochester OR has it been rather dry?

News10NBC’s Glenn Johnson is going to show you the data and you can decide.

This simplest way to look at this is to compare the percent of possible monthly precipitation. This is a comparison to the average rainfall for each month at the Rochester airport.

In the months of July and August, there is no doubt we got a lot of rain. It was upwards of almost 200% of normal for July and August was very similar with 164% of normal.

However, by September and October it seemed like we turned off the spigot as rainfall diminished dramatically.

The fall months have run close to half of normal rainfall with September at 43% and October at 57%. And so far, November is not doing much better. The last seven days at the Rochester airport have measured less a tenth of an inch for any one day.

If you combine the months of September, October, and the first half of November, the dry weather really becomes an issue.

The U.S. drought monitor shows that communities located in portions of Wyoming and Livingston Counties are now categorized in a moderate to severe drought. Looking ahead, with the exception of Wednesday night, the probability of precipitation is rather low through the next seven days and even the next ten days the rainfall the outlook is below normal.

As a result, we can say precipitation here in western New York has been either “feast or famine.”