1921
Posted by Chris in Tampa on 8/2/2015, 8:33 pm
Message modified by board administrator on 8/2/2015, 8:41 pm
At first I couldn't go back further than 1945 at Weather Underground and maybe 1939 perhaps at NOAA.

Then looking around, I did finally find where the weather obs look to be taken at Tampa International Airport though. The coordinates were here:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/datasets/GHCND/stations/GHCND:USW00012842/detail

And from Google Street View I see it now:
https://goo.gl/maps/Q8uMn

In case other people want to look for where their station is.

Then I realize the airport has not always been here, lol. I see that before that a weather station was located just south of where Tampa's train station is located today. I used this viewer:
https://gis.ncdc.noaa.gov/map/viewer/

And it appears it gives valid daily data, on the map, if you set it for particular days in 1921 and then hit "Update Map". From that I went to the "Selection" tab and selected "Identify" and clicked the station.

After that finally worked, I got a popup that has the Station ID. I wrote that down and put that into the URL like the current airport station and got:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/datasets/GHCND/stations/GHCND:USC00088786/detail

Rather than ordering data from the map, you can pull it up there. Select 1921 and then the month and you get a PDF file of data for each day of the month.

1921:

January: 1.07
February: 1.59
March: 1.06
April: 2.08
May: 9.41
June: 5.85
July: 11.19
August: 2.38
September: 1.58
October: 9.88
November: 1.58
December: 1.98

That location was located ESE of the current Tampa International Airport location:
https://goo.gl/maps/0qOSz

Comparison of both locations. As shown in the radar estimates I posted, there can be very huge differences in totals.

Then looking at the current rainfall for the summer in Tampa:
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KTPA/2015/8/2/MonthlyCalendar.html

And at previous months we get:

January: 1.75 (average: 2.23)
February: 6.55 (average: 2.81)
March: 1.03 (average 3.03)
April: 4.82 (average 2.03)
May: 6.74 (average 2.10)
June: 6.23 (average 6.68)
July: 11.84 (average 7.07)
August (to date, through 2 days): 4.03 (monthly average total is 7.77)

September monthly average total: 6.30
October monthly average total: 2.26
November monthly average total: 1.55
December monthly average total: 2.47

Some similarity, although August was especially dry it seems in 1921. Most places in Tampa have more than doubled the entire August 1921 monthly rainfall total, doing so in just two days, with some places about five times the 1921 monthly total.

If you look at July 1921, the month started off very wet, but the end of the month was a lot drier.

And for anyone wondering why 1921, that was the last major hurricane near Tampa. Late October 1921:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1921_Tampa_Bay_hurricane

I'm not sure if there is anyone alive that lives in Tampa and remembers that storm. At this point you would have to be about a 100.
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The rain was not done at my house in Tampa - Chris in Tampa, 7/29/2015, 6:53 pm
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