It's official: Rain that flooded SE Minnesota is a state record

By Mary Jane Smetanka, Star Tribune

Last update: August 23, 2007 - 6:56 PM

Now it's official. The torrential rains that flooded southeastern Minnesota last weekend set a state record for rainfall during a 24-hour period, smashing the old record by more than 4 inches.

The National Weather Service gauge in Germain Davison's farmyard 1 mile south of Hokah had 15.1 inches of water in it when he measured it at 8 a.m. Sunday morning. The previous record, set July 22, 1972, at Fort Ripley, was 10.84 inches.

Davison, 86, and has been a Weather Service observer for about 25 years, said setting a record was "terrific." But, he added, the rain "was more than I wanted. The damage that it's done to people and families down here is not a light matter."

Getting a weather record approved is complicated. The measurement has to come from someone in the Weather Service's network. The observer's equipment is checked by Weather Service personnel, and the nomination for a record has to be forwarded to the Extreme Records Committee of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for a vote.

In this case, the vote was unanimous, said Mark Seeley, extension climatologist for the University of Minnesota.

Climatologically speaking, the Hokah record is a shocker, Seeley said. Until last weekend, Minnesota had had only three 24-hour rainfalls of 10 inches or more in 200 years.

"We just obliterated the record," he said. "We rarely get an atmosphere that is capable of producing rainfall with an intensity of that magnitude. It may happen once every 100 or 200 or 300 years."

The question, Seeley said, is whether this is a sign of things to come with a shifting climate, or just a fluke.

Davison, a retired naval officer, celebrated his 63rd wedding anniversary Thursday with his wife, Jeanne, said that his weather station is set up where precipitation can't be influenced by buildings, trees or other obstructions. Though he has never had trouble emptying cylinders and measuring rainfall, on Sunday his son and a friend were there to help lift the cylinders out.

"I was flabbergasted," Davison said. "I wanted to measure every single drop."

Mary Jane Smetanka • 612-673-7380

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