Feast or famine on rain this August

When you look at our rain total for the month of August it looks like we've had a ton of rain, but looks are deceiving. On paper it is a lot of rain. Milwaukee has officially picked up 5.83" of rain in August which is tied for the 14th wettest August on record and well above the monthly average.

But when you look at each day individually you'll see that we've only had five days with measureable rain this month and two of those only picked up 0.01". Almost all of our rain fell on August 2nd when storms stalled out over southern Milwaukee County dumping rain. A record breaking 4.79" fell that day. We also saw good rain August 9th and 10th with each day there picking up around a half inch. The 10th was the Derecho that moved across the Midwest. If you look at the past nine days we've basically picked up nothing - just 0.01". So despite being well above-average and near a top 10 wettest August we do need some rain.

We also haven't had a good widespread soaking rain this month - an event where everyone gets a half or full inch of rain. All of our rain has come with thunderstorms or scattered showers where some get dumped on, like Milwaukee did on August 2nd, and others get hardly anything. Because of that the rain totals will vary heavily depending on where you live. 

Our next chance for rain arrives over the weekend. Originally it was looking like Saturday afternoon/evening might be the wet day but the front has slowed down a bit and now Sunday overall looks like the day with a chance for showers. The showers do look pretty light and scattered some some may, once again, stay completely dry. 

Download the CBS 58 Ready Weather app to track and rain with the interactive radar and see when other rain chances might happen in the 10-day.