Examiner.com article on wettest year in Michigan history

Michigan and North Dakota had their wettest years ever, while California had its driest.
Credit: NOAA

2013 wettest year in Michigan history

It's official.  Last year was the wettest year on record for Michigan.

According to NOAA's national overview for 2013, which was released on January 21, 2014, the average precipitation in Michigan was the highest in 119 years of record-keeping.  Michigan had 40.12 inches of precipitation, 8.9 inches above average. This beat the previous record wet year of 1985 by 0.64 inch.

Other states setting weather records last year were North Dakota, which also had its wettest year on record, and California, where Governor Jerry Brown recently declared a drought state of emergency after the Golden State's driest year ever.

More at the link, including the locations that set records in Michigan, including a video about the record drought in California.  For what it's worth, the image I used here is not the one I used to illustrate the article, but it's the one I wanted to use.  It just had the wrong format, while I did include had the right one.  That one shows locations that had the highest and lowest temperatures and precipitation, so it still worked.

By the way, this is the second time I've written about record annual precipitation here.  The first was 2011 set rainfall records in Detroit, Michigan, and Ohio, which ended up being the fourth most read entry in the blog's first year.  May this one be so lucky.