How Much Rain Fell In Rhode Island Aug. 5

NEWPORT, RI — An extremely rainy day left streets flooded and rain barrels overflowing in Rhode Island Thursday. The National Weather Service released final rainfall totals for the state late Thursday night, with some areas recording well over three inches of rainfall.

The storm tracked over the East Bay, which saw the highest rainfall amounts in the state. Aquidneck Island recorded 3.56 inches of rain, while the Tiverton-Little Compton area saw 3.62 inches.

The Northwestern part of the state saw lower totals, though pretty much everywhere in the state saw about an inch of rain.

So how much rain is that, really?

According to the latest 30-year report from the National Weather Service, the Providence area usually sees 3.59 inches of rain in the entire month of August. That means Rhode Island is well on its way to a second unseasonably wet month in a row, following the third-wettest July on record for the Providence area.

Put another way, The National Severe Storms Laboratory estimated that one inch of rain is equal to about 13 inches of snowfall. If it had been about 40 to 50 degrees colder over the past few days, much of the state would have been buried under accumulation to put the Blizzard of 1978 to shame.