Tampa Bay sees wettest rainy season on record

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — It’s not just you. It’s been an incredibly wet rainy season so far in the Tampa Bay Area.

In fact, it has been the wettest on record in places like Tampa and the Sarasota-Bradenton area, as evidenced by all the flash flooding, and rainy season is not over. It typically continues through early October.

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At Tampa Airport (KTPA), nearly 48 inches of rain has fallen since May 25, which is the average start of rainy season. That is a record for the most rain in a rainy season and 21 inches above normal.

For the year so far, KTPA has picked up 59 inches (record is 60 inches in 1959), which is already 21 inches above the normal rainfall to date, and +9 inches for entire year. We still have nearly 4 months left to accumulate more rainfall.

Records have been kept at Tampa International Airport since 1890.

In Sarasota-Bradenton (SRQ), since May 25, we have had 50 inches of rain, which is a new rainy season record beating 42 inches in 1988. Normally in rainy season SRQ only recieves 26 inches by now. We have nearly doubled the typical rainy season rainfall.

In August alone, an astonishing two feet of rain fell at the airport.

Sarasota has picked up 60 inches (record is 63 inches in 1957) for the year so far, which is already 22 inches above the normal rainfall to date, and +11 inches for entire year. With nearly four months left, more rain will pile up.

The 60 inches is also almost 3X what we received by this time last year — the driest year on record there! Records have been kept at Sarasota-Bradenton Airport since 1911.

It has been particularly rainy for two reasons — one of which was Tropical Storm Debby, which delivered a foot of rain around Aug. 4 and Aug. 5.

Also, unlike last summer when we had steering from the west pushing rain to the East Coast, this summer we have seen the opposite — a pretty good easterly wind flow. That has pushed inland storms back to the West Coast. Often, those storms collide with sea breeze boundaries, and the rain really blows up near Tampa Bay and along the coast.

In the below image from the Southeast Regional Climate Center (SERCC) you can see the percent of normal rainfall all along Florida’s West Coast. Purple is 150% or greater over the past 90 days.

The map below features just August rainfall. You can see the bullseye from Tampa Bay south through Bradenton and Sarasota.

Rainy season typically ends in early October, so several more inches of rain are certainly possible. Although we are waterlogged righty now, it will hopefully help limit fire weather next spring.

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