Rain sets records in Kootenai County

By DEVIN HEILMAN

Hagadone News Network

If it felt like it was always raining in October, it's because it practically was.

"This was more rain than what we had all summer combined," meteorologist Randy Mann said Tuesday. "This was the second-wettest month ever. This was unprecedented."

The 10th month brought with it 8.88 inches of precipitation, as measured at climatologist Cliff Harris' observation station on Player Drive in Coeur d'Alene. On Sunday, Harris announced the previous rainfall record of 6.96 inches in 1951 was broken with a total of 7.55 inches, but the rain through the rest of the 30th and on Halloween raised the new record even higher.

"It is a highly unusual pattern to have so much rain occur in October," said Greg Koch, a weather forecaster with the National Weather Service in Spokane. "It seemed like we were about a month ahead of schedule. November is when we often see these multi-day rain events, so that made this year unusual."

Koch said the heavy rains couldn't have occurred at a better time.

"In general, the rain has been very good," he said. "The Inland Northwest has experienced a 2-3 year drought and we received the rain at a very good time. It occurred in the fall; the ground isn't frozen, so all of that rain has soaked into the agricultural areas. We saw very little runoff and, despite setting regional records, we had very few reports of significant flooding or mudslides. That tends to be a problem when you get that much rain in the springtime. There was no mountain snow contribution to the rainwater."

Koch said November looks to be a bit drier and temperatures will be at or slightly above average the first week of the month.

"It's hard to sustain wet weather patterns for long periods of time," he said. "For the first 7-10 days of the month, we see a couple light rain events coming our way, but nothing like the big multi-day rain events that we had in October."