Lorton Rainfall July 30 - Aug 5, 2012

This has been a dry summer across much of the country.  One benefit of that has been the record low number of tornadoes elsewhere in the country this year.  This past July had the fewest tornadoes in the country (at most 24 according to preliminary reports) , easily breaking the modern record set in 1960, which saw a total of 42 tornadoes.   Tornado reports are more frequent now than they were in the 1960s owing to interest in storm spotting and the creation of inexpensive high quality digital cameras.   As such, this drop is even more remarkable.  The high pressure that’s kept the middle of the country dry has also suppressed tornado generation, because the thunderstorms responsible for summer rains have been missing.

Here in Lorton, it was a dry week, with hardly any rain.  I heard a lot more thunder, but the rain never materialized..  My rain gauge in Lorton recorded the following precipitation at 6am on the day indicated for the previous 24 hours: