Sunday nearly breaks rain record

The National Weather Service on Monday confirmed that a 13-hour period of heavy rainfall on Sunday went into the history books as the second wettest day in the history of Nome’s weather record keeping since 1906.
Meteorological technician Bob TenEyck with the Nome office of NWS said that between Sunday morning at 1:02 a.m. and 1:34 p.m. the station measured 1.74 inches of rain. The rest of the day saw rain drizzling, not coming down in sheets as it did at night and in the morning. The rain almost broke a record set on August 9, 1956 for the wettest day ever recorded in Nome with precipitation at 2.36 inches.
TenEyck said the rain was associated with the front and the center of a system coming from Siberia, hence, a northwesterly direction. He said the rain front was visible on radar as well as satellite imagery. In anticipation of the storm the weather service issued a flood and high surf advisory. The winds gusted up to 32 mph, but the direction of the ocean swell did not take out any roads on the southern shore nor did it cause storm surges. However, river water levels rose and hampered some of the fish counting efforts underway. Alaska Fish and Game fish counters had to pull pickets on the Solomon River weir, but as of Monday afternoon fish counting has resumed.
Meteorological technician TenEyck reported that the Snake River gauge rose one foot between Saturday and Monday, but no damages were reported.
Stosh Labinski with the Alaska Dept. of Transportation in Nome said although the road crew will be busy grading the roads and fixing pot holes created by the rain, the storm did not cause damage to the Nome-Council Highway, which typically in the fall time is the road that receives damage from high surf and storm surges.