Equal Opportunity Storm

Fay is bound and determined not to leave anyone out of receiving her buckets o’rain. The storm hit the Keys, then drenched South Florida, drowned the east coast, flooded Central Florida (that’s us), and is currently parked over Gainesville with storms pounding Orlando, Tallahassee and Jacksonville all at once. I guess Tampa didn’t get too much out of it, but even they are getting stuff from the feeder bands. Next stop: Pensacola.

We’re still getting hit here, but it’s nothing compared to what the Space Coast went through the last couple of days.

From Wunder Blog:

Fay has brought the Melbourne, Florida region its greatest single-storm rainfall on record. By 1 am EDT today (Aug 21), Fay had dumped 22.83″ of rain on Cape Canaveral. The previous rainfall record for a tropical cyclone in the region was set in 1950, when Hurricane King dumped 15.44″ of rain on Patrick Air Force Base near Cape Canaveral. Hurricane Wilma of 2005 holds third place–it dumped 13.26″ on Kennedy Space Center.

Fay is also one of Florida’s rainiest storms on record. According to Wikipedia and NOAA, the eleven rainiest Florida tropical cyclones of all time were:

Easy (1950) 38.70″ Yankeetown
Georges (1998) 38.46″ Munson
Unnamed (1941) 35.00″ Trenton
Dennis (1985) 25.56″ Homestead
TD 1A (1992) 25.00″ Arcadia Tower
Jeanne (1980) 24.98″ Key West
Dora (1964) 23.73″ Mayo
TD (1969) 23.40″ Havana
Unnamed (1924) 23.22″ Marco Island
Bob (1985) 21.50″ Everglades City
Alberto (1994) 21.38 Niceville

According to the latest public information statement from the NWS office in Melbourne, we have an unofficial public observation at Melbourne/Windover Farms (through 5 am 8/21/08) of 26.20″. If verified, that would make Fay the 4th rainiest Florida tropical cyclone on record.