For this week’s focus on flooding and droughts, I wanted to investigate the tremendous rainfall we experienced in Arlington County this summer. Evidence of the flooding has been all over the local media, but I was curious–was this really worse than normal? Or are these sorts of heavy rain events more common than I imagine?
Finding data on Arlington’s historical precipitation was more challenging that I expected. Google’s recommended a number of unscientific “sites” for data, including bestplaces.net and usclimate.com. I ended up using the latter for some information after finding NOAA’s charts difficult to comprehend.
Weather Underground was also useful–their site provide graphs of average precipitation compared to daily values through the month. Much of the news and social media coverage of the flooding took place in the days following the storm, so this data helped me pinpoint when the actual storms took place.
To summarize my findings, I’ve compiled a short Google Slides presentation of the events. Take a look below.
Sincerely,
Caitlin
Where The Water Goes 
Hi Caitlin,
Thanks for sharing those photos and the rainfall data. I lived in Arlington from 2012-2017, and that does seem like more flooding than I ever experienced there. I think your blog looks great so far, and as former Arlingtonian, I look forward to reading your future posts!
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Thanks! This summer was a little crazy rain-wise, but I’ve heard from others in Virginia that they’ve also had an especially wet year. I look forward to checking out your blog shortly. Thanks for reading!
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