City Breaks 125-Year Rainfall Record

Rain obscures the view of a tornado on May 28, 2019 in Lawrence, Kansas. Dodge City, Kansas, received more than a foot of rain through June, more than three times its average monthly amount.

Dodge City, Kansas, broke a 125-year rainfall record after more than a foot of rain fell in the city in one month.

Severe weather has brought a deluge of rain to Dodge over the past month, spurring a slew of weather-related warnings that included thunderstorm and tornado warnings and advisories about severe winds and damaging hail. During the first weekend in June, Dodge City received so much rain that it made up for a six-month deficit the region had experienced since mid-December.

The wet pattern continued. National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologists announced that after excessive rainfall on Sunday morning, the city broke its previous rainfall record of 11.17 inches of rain in June by nearly an inch, ending June with 12.02 inches of rain. The previous record was set over a century ago, in 1899.

The NWS office in Dodge City posted on X (formerly Twitter): "...NEW JUNE RAINFALL RECORD... With this morning's excessive rainfall in Dodge City, we just established a NEW JUNE RAINFALL RECORD at Dodge City, surpassing the previous record of 11.17" for the month of June in 1899."

NWS meteorologist Mike Umscheid told Newsweek that 4.39 inches of rain fell on Sunday morning during the city's strongest rainstorm for the month, prompting flash flood warnings after meteorologists issued a forecast for heavy rainfall rates of 2 inches per hour. He said the most recent storm was unusual because it arrived around sunrise, and typically Dodge City sees most of its rainstorms occur between midnight and 2 a.m.

The most recent rain meant that Dodge City "smashed" its previous monthly rainfall record, Umscheid said.

In addition to breaking the record, the city's rainfall amount for June was more than three times its average monthly rainfall of 3.29 inches.

"It really boiled down to several nights," Umscheid said. "We ended up with four calendar days in the month of June where we had over an inch. Some of those were well over an inch."

On June 2, a rainstorm produced 2.94 inches of rain. Then, the city's most heavy rainstorm hit Sunday, the last day of the month.

"That's what was interesting. We had some dry periods in between those big events, but it was really the big events that helped catapult us into first place," Umscheid said.

He added that the storms were "just pure random chance." Typically in June, heavy rainstorms forming over eastern Colorado "congeal into a big system of storms" that then hit Dodge City late in the evening hours or overnight. Umscheid said that storm setup occurred several times throughout the month, with very strong winds accompanying the storms.

Dodge City can expect more rain in the first week of July, he said. There's a 20 percent chance of rain on Monday night, a 30 percent chance during the day on Tuesday and a 60 percent chance on Tuesday night.

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