Miami Shattered All Sorts of Rain Records This Week

27 May 2020, 2:17 am

Even for Florida’s notorious tropical downpours, this week featured something that was truly one-of-a-kind for south Florida, and specifically Miami.

First, there’s the daily record set in Miami from Tuesday, where over seven inches of rain fell on that day alone. More over, almost all of that fell in just two hours (between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. ET) on Tuesday evening.

But of course, this came on the heels of several other days of astronomical rain totals. In all, Miami received between 11 to over 14 inches of rain in just 72 hours (3 days). That equates to a roughly one-in-50-year type of rain event, according to Miami-based meteorologist John Morales:

3-day rainfall, showing only amounts recorded above 8 inches. #Miami-Dade to southern #Broward counties were hardest hit. For the Miami Int’l Airport’s accumulation, it equates to a 1-in-50 year recurrence interval. There’s a good chance of afternoon storms again today. #Bertha pic.twitter.com/8cgWMwWM8Z

— John Morales (@JohnMoralesNBC6) May 27, 2020

A stalled trough of low pressure, centered right over Miami, led to some of these exceptional rain totals. The trough barely budged over three days, bringing huge rain totals repetitively to the same areas over south Florida.

This ended up as Miami’s rainiest May on record as well, with nearly 19 inches of rain (18.88″ to be exact, as of Wednesday morning).

The rain yesterday pushed #Miami airport to its wettest May on record! Irony is we were in drought conditions at the beginning of the month… pic.twitter.com/8qNipexoQU

— Eric Blake 🌀 (@EricBlake12) May 27, 2020

Of course, this was heavily concentrated across south Florida. Here’s a look at other Miami-area rain totals, and the rest of the state of Florida as well. Notice how the high rain totals (at least from Tuesday) were so heavily focused on the Miami-Dade County area, and the immediate Miami metro.

The good news? After some widespread afternoon showers and thunderstorms across the area, conditions will slowly begin to transition to more of a typical summer-like pattern for south Florida, with only daily thunderstorm chances expected for the rest of the week and into the weekend.

It’s a start, especially after Miami’s wettest May on record, with still a few days left to go in the month.

Stay with WeatherNation for the latest on the soggy Florida coastline.

About the author

Chris Bianchi

Chris doesn't remember a time when that he didn't love the weather. When he was five years old, he wrote his first words, "Partly cloudy", in Ms. Benn's kindergarten class. According to Chris, it's been a love affair ever since, from teaching himself how to read forecast models at age 12, to landing at WeatherNation. Growing up in Greenwich, Connecticut, he started to go after his lifelong drea... Load Morem of becoming a meteorologist by predicting whether or not there would be snow days - turning him into Greenwich High School's "defacto weatherman". He turned that snow day-predicting website into a front page story a local newspaper, which in turn earned him a look at WABC-TV in New York, where Chris did the weather live on-air at the age of 16. He attended Boston University, where he continued being a "weather nerd", performing weather updates on the campus radio and TV stations, and doing the daily forecasts for the student newspaper. Following his studies at BU, Chris worked at Mile High Sports and ESPN Denver for four years while pursuing his certification in Broadcast Meteorology from Mississippi State University. Chris is a huge sports fan, rooting for the Rockies, Nuggets, Broncos, Avalanche and UConn. He frequently find links between sports and weather, including an investigative analysis he did in 2013, finding trends between Peyton Manning's play and game time temperature (he doesn't like the cold). Chris also enjoys running, playing any sport, socializing and periodically overeating at all-you-can-eat buffets.