If all of the raining in 2011 left you feeling drained, you may take comfort in knowing that your complaining has been substantiated by the National Weather Service.
The year finished as the second-wettest year on record with 58.38 inches of precipitation. That trails only 1990’s total of 65.70 inches.
The previous second-highest recording was in 1890 with 53.36 inches.
Counting the drizzle that fell Saturday night on New Year’s Eve revelers, the Akron-Canton area had 175 days with .01 inches or more of rain in 2011, according to weather service records.
That averages out to 14.6 days a month or 3.4 days in a typical week.
“It’s definitely been wet periods, a wet year with above normal rainfall all year,” said Martin Thompson, a hydro-meterological technician with the weather service. “We have seen a lot of systems that produce a lot of rain move through pretty regularly. Periods without rainfall have been short in duration.”
A normal year for local precipitation, as measured at the weather service station at Akron-Canton Airport, is 39.51 inches, so 2011’s precipitation total was 18.87 inches more than normal.
The measurements take into account the rain plus the water content of snow.
The light drizzle on Saturday was the last precipitation of the year, taking the December total to 4.75 inches.
The Akron-Canton area saw 2.4 inches of snow in December.
December had 16 days with measurable precipitation, or more than half of the month. Another six days had trace amounts of precipitation.
The greatest amount of December precipitation came in 1985 with 9.39 inches.
All of Ohio has been rainy this year, with Cleveland, Toledo, Youngstown, Cincinnati and Columbus all setting annual rainfall records. Dayton had its second-rainiest year ever.
In Northeast Ohio, Cleveland had 65.32 inches for the year, breaking the 1990 record of 53.83 inches and Youngstown had 54.01 inches of precipitation, passing 50.81 in 1911.
Three sites near Cincinnati broke the all-time Ohio rainfall mark of 70.82 inches in a year.
The old mark was recorded in 1870 at Little Mountain on the Geauga-Lake county border.
The three sites in Hamilton County all recorded from 74 to 76 inches of precipitation this year.
The Akron-Canton area did not set any monthly precipitation records, the weather service said.
Dave Scott can be reached at 330-996-3577 or davescott@thebeaconjournal.com.