Would it be possible to show both the below (or above)rainfall in inches and the percentage of normal? e.g., if an area's avg rainfall is 100" and it is 10" below normal that is only 10% below avg, whereas if an areas normal rainfall is 50", that would be 20% below avg. Puts things more in perspective.

MIKE MOSS SAYS:    Brad,     That's a good suggestion, one we considered including on our RDU rainfall graphs, which you can see at

http://www.wral.com/weather/page/1934052/

Our graphics folks wanted to keep the legend boxes a little smaller, so we left the percentages off, however both the normal and observed rainfall amounts are shown for each period shown on the page (30 days, 90 days, 365 days, and Calendar Year to Date) so that you can easily calculate the percentage value. I will also pass along the suggestion to perhaps go ahead and add a percentage to the anomaly data shown in the "Drought Monitor" box on our main weather page, where we currently show year-to-date normal and observed values (again, allowing an easy computation of the percentage). We're also looking at adding the one-year rolling window anomaly to that box, since the Year-to-Date value will drop to zero on January 1st. We're also giving some thought to adding an anomaly value that starts from about the time the drought began across the area, since that period is the one over which above or below normal rainfall is really most critical, as opposed to an arbitrary period like one year or a portion of a calendar year.