Illinois sees record precipitation totals for August and July

By Gary Scott on September 8, 2016 at 6:03am

Illinoisans recently experienced one of the wettest summers in the history of the state.

State Climatologist Jim Angel says that July and August in particular were two particularly soggy.

“Illinois experienced its wettest August and wettest July-August on record. The statewide average rainfall for August was 6.9 inches, that’s 3.3 inches above normal, and the wettest on record, it just beat out the old record set back in 1977. Combine a very wet July with a very wet August and you have the wettest July-August on record. Rainfall total for those two months was 13.7 inches, which is 6.1 inches above normal, and it beat out the old record for that period set back in 2015,” says Angel.

Precipitation in Morgan County for the month of August was nearly an inch above normal at 4.26 inches. The wettest August on record occurred in 1956 when the county received over eight-and-a-half inches.

The rainiest days of the month were August 4th and the 30th, when both days saw more than three-quarters of an inch.

Angel says Illinois also saw an August that was warmer and more humid that normal.

“Statewide average temperature for August was 75.9 degrees, that’s 2.3 degrees above normal. That is tied with 1943 as the fifteenth warmest August on record. The average high temperatures were close to normal, in fact most of Illinois never got warmer than the low-to-mid nineties in August. However, the high humidity levels did not allow temperatures to cool off at night. As a result, night time temperatures were three-to-five degrees above normal,” says Angel.

Morgan County’s average temperature for August was just below 75 degrees, nearly seven-and-a-half degrees lower than the warmest on record. The highest temperature for the month was 91 degrees, which was reached twice on the 30th and 31st.