Mariton: 2018 Precipitation

by Tim Burris, Preserve Manager

2018 ended up being one of the wettest years on record. We had quite a surplus at the end of November.  Then we received another 6.01 inches of precipitation in December (2” above average for the month).

When everything was tallied, Mariton received 71.72 inches of precipitation for the year. That includes snow that is melted and measured.  For some perspective, that is just shy of six feet of liquid precipitation.  Mariton’s yearly average is 52.77 inches (or just over four feet).  I only have 20+ years of data and the consensus is that our region is getting wetter.  (That skews my average higher than stations like ABE that have been collecting data since 1912.)

The first half of the year was pretty close to average, so most of the surplus came after the middle of July when things stayed wet. We received the remnants of a few tropical systems (Florence, Gordon, Michael and Willa).  But most of the precipitation came from a recurring weather pattern that regularly brought us rain, along with a couple big thunderstorms during the summer. Will the weather pattern change in 2019?  We will have to wait and see.