Wettest August in Iowa history? Maybe

This could be the wettest August ever in Cedar Rapids.

Through 1 p.m. Thursday, The Eastern Iowa Airport had recorded 12.43 inches this month. The August record, set in 1993, is 13.09 inches.

“It just keeps on coming,” State Climatologist Harry Hillaker said as rain continued to fall Thursday afternoon. “It's really kind of surprising, because the weather system doesn't look that impressive but it's been really efficient at producing rain.”

Hillaker said rain fell the heaviest across Iowa southern half and “a bit north,” roughly along a line from the Lamoni area through Cedar Rapids. The heaviest 24-hour official total reported Thursday morning was in Brighton in southwest Washington County: 6.85 inches. But Hillaker expected heavier amounts fell elsewhere, to be reported later by local spotters.

“There's a bunch of real narrow zones that got locally heavy rain, right through middle of Linn County through northern Linn and Jones counties,” he said.

But the concentrated, intense storms missed most of the watershed of the Cedar and other Eastern Iowa rivers, depriving them of the widespread runoff that fueled the June 2008 flooding.

“Northern Iowa almost got missed altogether,” Hillaker said.

Through Wednesday, Cedar Rapids had received 9.01 inches of rain, 5.42 above normal for the month. Iowa City had received 6.1 inches, 1.95 more than average.