October Summary and Misc.

October turned out to be a fairly wet month, in comparison to the 13 Octobers that I've kept records here at the house. Total rainfall was 0.90" with measurable precipitation on 6 days. About 2/3rds of the month's total fell within less than an hour on the afternoon of Wednesday, October 6th, when strong thunderstorms moved northward across the city. This was the third wettest October of the past 13 years - the most rain fell in 2000 (5.06") and 1.16" fell in 2006. The driest October here during those years was 1999, with no rainfall. There have been 7 of 13 years with less than 0.10" of rain during October - so it's been typically a very dry month in recent years. It has been a mild Fall also and I haven't had to turn on the furnace yet (last year I had to fire it up on October 29th).
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The last rain occurred on October 22nd and it's been very dry since then. The plot above shows the comparison of GPS PW with the TWC sounding data here. The RRS soundings have been much drier than the PW data values, with differences between the two observations running 3 to 5 mm during the past week.
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Weak Hurricane Tomas threatens Haiti with torrential rains today as it moves northward. Sadly, thousands of Haitians still are living in tent camps, after the devastating earthquake earlier this year.