Waseca; St James have already seen their wettest year ever

KMSP - A couple of cities in southern Minnesota have seen their wettest year on record, and we aren’t even out of October yet.  Waseca, with over 50 inches of rain so far in 2016, and St. James, with nearly 4 feet of rain, have topped every year before it (since records began anyway) to claim the top spot with more than 2 months to go.  This goes to show how truly localized some of the rains (and snows for that matter) can be.  Now, both cities have much shorter records than larger cities do with just over a hundred years of records for Waseca, and only about 70 for St. James, as opposed to the nearly 150 year records for official climate stations like MSP Airport.  That being said, it is still quite the feat beating out every other year considering there have been many VERY wet years before this one with massive river flooding in the 70s and the 90s.

While much of southern Minnesota has seen well above average precipitation so this year, those 2 cities have seen even more of a deluge than most.  The images above show just how much each city has seen and compares it to much of the region.  As for the metro, MSP Airport is running well above average for the year, but is nowhere close to the totals of our southern neighbors right now with about 33 inches of moisture so far and ranking 26th on the all-time list.  But a closer look at that list has both 2015 AND 2014 in the top 15 all-time.  While it would take some pretty big storms in the coming weeks to get the metro to the top of the list, even average precipitation for the rest of the year would get us passed the last couple years and near the top 10.