Weather

Earth Day was Rain Day!

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Saturday was Earth Day. For North Carolina and surrounding states we could have called it 'Rain Day'!! It was so nice to finally see a good widespread soaking rain for a region that has been thirsting for a decent rain event. One of our viewers described the rain as a gift from Mother Nature. As of Friday our rainfall deficits across the area were in the 7-8" range with Greenville-Spartanburg taking the cake with a deficit over 9" for the year.

Thanks to yesterday's cold front we saw the deficit drop down to 5.44" out at RDU. The official rainfall total was 1.83", a rainfall record for the day. That's more than the monthly total of 1.25" in March out at RDU and more than the monthly total of 1.65" in February. It is also the most rain we have seen in a single day since the 2.03" of rain at RDU on August 9th of 2005 and the 1.72" of rain we had at RDU on November 21st of 2005.

By the way for the month of April we have seen 3.15" of rain so far at RDU. That's the most rain we have seen in a single month since the 4.24" of rain we saw in December 2005.

Of course along with the much needed rain came severe thunderstorms which produced damaging winds and some large hail. We had emails from viewers saying they saw hail the size of peas, golf balls and approaching baseballs!


Below are some of the photos our viewers sent in as well. Remember if you would like to share your weather photos you can send them to weather@wral.com and we will post some of them on our blog or website. THANKS!!!



Jyl in Raleigh sent us this shot of her backyard which included her neighbors Bradford Pear tree losing a branch from the strong winds and their patio furniture becoming lawn furniture.



Here are a collection of images that were sent in from various viewers in the Garner area. They saw nickel to golf ball sized hail.






Gloria from Franklin County sent in the following shots from the Peach Orchard Road area. As you can see they experienced some violent winds. There was a severe thunderstorm warning issued for Western Franklin County from approximately 12:43pm to 1:30pm.




Thanks again to all our viewers for sharing their weather pictures with us.