The October 2009 rainfall total will go down as 6.58″ here at WLFI with at least a trace of rain falling on 19 days & MEASURABLE RAIN (0.01″ or more) falling on 16 of 31 days.

That is 61% of the days in October 2009 with some sort of rain (trace) & 52% of the days with measurable rain (>0.01″)!!! Thus, you can see why there are such delays in the corn & soybean harvest, in addition to fall fieldwork.

Comparing my data at WLFI with the official National Weather Service West Lafayette COOP station records, which go back to 1901, this is the wettest October since 2001 & the 5th wettest on record.

October 2001 was the wettest October on record with 8.89″, when rain fell on 13 days.  This included 2.32″ on October 14, 2001.

The wettest October day in the COOP dataset was October 22, 1983 with 3.12″ of rain.  In October 1983, a total of 4.68″ of rain fell for the month.

The last time measurable rain fell on 16 of the 31 days in October was in 1941 in the COOP dataset.  Measurable rainfall was recorded on 15 days at the West Lafayette COOP station October 2009.

TOP 5 WETTEST OCTOBERS ON RECORD

West Lafayette (1901-2009)