Published: 7:58 PM GMT on April 29, 2013
Last Saturday evening (April 27th) the Houston area was swamped by as much as 8” of rain, most of which fell in just a couple of hours. The city’s official weather site at Houston’s Hobby Airport measured 3.07” in one hour with an amazing 0.69” of this falling in one 3-minute period according to the site’s METAR reports. Also in this blog is a table of record point U.S. rainfalls for various periods of time.
The Houston storm
A slow moving group of thunderstorms accompanied by torrential rain and hail drifted over the greater Houston area late Saturday afternoon and evening. Rainfall was heaviest in the southwestern section of the city where a maximum accumulation of 8.12” was reported at a MESONET site in Sugarland-Meadows Place. As one can see on the map below, the heavy precipitation was confined to a relatively small area but included most of Houston’s downtown core, but with little rain falling over the northern suburbs.
Storm totals for the April 27-28 event in the Houston area. Hobby Airport on the south side of town picked up 6.31” whereas Houston International Airport, on the north side of town, received only a 0.26” total. Most of the storm rainfall fell in the two-hour period of 5-7:p.m on April 27th. Map from NWS-Houston.
The storm reached its peak intensity over Hobby Airport between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m. on Saturday evening. The following amounts of rainfall were reported at the site during the time frames mentioned:
0.69” in 3 minutes (5:26-5:29 p.m.)
1.21” in 7 minutes (5:22-5:29 p.m.)
2.18” in 19 minutes (5:22-5:41 p.m.)
2.77” in 34 minutes (5:07-5:41 p.m.)
3.07” in 1 hour (4:53-5:53 p.m.)
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