AUSTIN, Texas — The past few weeks have been busy for rainfall forecasting in Austin – which is interesting, considering Central Texas summers generally trend very hot and dry.
Our region has seen rains from both Tropical Storm Alberto and Hurricane Beryl this summer. This week, a surge of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, along with a deep trough shifting across Texas, made for a damp few days.
According to the Lower Colorado River Authority's hydromet website, rainfall gauges from Bastrop to Mason recorded anywhere from 1 to 5 inches of rain since Sunday.
Some areas outside of the KVUE viewing area were the locations that observed the biggest downpours. Rocksprings, Texas, recorded 8.9 inches of rain, but around 7 inches of that fell during a 6-hour window on Tuesday.
With so much talk of tropical moisture and rain this summer, it feels like we should be surpassing some type of rainfall record, right? Well, not exactly.
We're close to the end of July, with 2.92 inches of rain recorded at Camp Mabry as of July 23. The wettest July ever goes back to 1919, with 12.80 inches of rain. That year was also the banner for the wettest summer ever, with 23.31 inches of rain.
The average July rainfall is 2.09 inches, so for 2024, we are trending almost an inch above average.
To rank it, we are currently in 90th place for the wettest summer and 32nd place for the wettest July at Camp Mabry.
Despite the summer rains being pretty far from record-breaking, the wet and cool trend is certainly a bit unusual for this time of year. The last summer similar to our current conditions was 2021.
The rain will not be as noticeable over the next seven days, but the cooler trend does stick around through the end of the week! Here is the latest forecast:
