Official: 2015 Is Oklahoma’s Wettest Year

An Oklahoma official says 2015 is the state’s wettest year on record, beating a rainfall record set in 1957.

The Oklahoman reports that the state has seen an average of 48 inches of rain this year, topping the previous record of 47.88 inches.

Oklahoma state climatologist Gary McManus says that more than half of this year’s rainfall came between April and July. He says the state received an average of 29.53 inches of rain during that period, making it the wettest such period on record.

In May, heavy rainfall caused the Cimarron River in Crescent, about 11 miles northwest of Guthrie, to carry away several feet of riverbank, sweeping away homes in the Twin Lakes community. Oklahoma received a statewide average of 14.44 inches of rain in May, making it the wettest single month on record.

Remnants of Tropical Storm Bill also swept through the state and dumped as much as 11 inches of rain across parts of southern Oklahoma the next month.

Heavy rainfall also caused officials to evacuate a neighborhood near the Canadian River in southwest Oklahoma City as the river threatened to breach its banks, overwhelm an earthen berm and merge with a nearby industrial pond.

According to the climatologist, the state also had the second-wettest November on record, which contributed to the new rainfall record.

The state’s rainfall total is expected to be even higher by the end of the year.