July was indeed soggier than usual in Red Deer with 120.8 mm of rain falling during the month.
Environment Canada meteorologist Kirk Torneby said the 30-year average for Red Deer in July is 94.4 mm.
“(July 2016) comes in as the 19th wettest on record. It was a wet and stormy month for sure,” Torneby said on Tuesday.
But he said it wasn’t as much as the 123 mm that fell in 2012 and it didn’t come close to the city’s record rainfall in July 1999 of 274.4 mm.
The city received the most rain last month on July 1o with 21.4 mm. July 15 and 22 each had 15 mm.
He said it’s difficult to know what contributed to all the rain especially in southern parts of the province last month that poured 206.1 mm onto Calgary which was that city’s second wettest July on record.
“Some of the summer time patterns that we typically see didn’t develop. Usually we talk about these upper ridges, those really warm, hot and sunny days, just not a cloud in the sky for a week — those patterns never really developed. Long-term patterns like El Nino, those big forcing things in the atmosphere, weren’t at play. What were the things contributing to it? Don’t know.”
He said localized thunderstorms are what really cause the most rain in the summer and typically June and July are the wettest months. Average rainfall for June in Red Deer is 94.0 mm.
Since 1999, rainfall for July in the city has been in the normal range with some exceptions like 164 mm in 2ooo and 143 mm in 2010 and others, Torneby said.
Unstable weather was expected to continue for Red Deer for about the next 10 days and includes 30 to 50 mm expected to start falling late Tuesday and continue into Wednesday.
“Usually this would be the typical scenario we’d see earlier in the spring or summer.”
szielinski@www.reddeeradvocate.com