On this date in 2018, D.C. received a calendar-day record 4 inches of rain. The downpours sent “high water racing down streets and roads as cars became trapped and motorists required rescue,” The Washington Post’s Martin Weil reported. Rainfall totals reached 4 to 6 inches across the region and the National Weather Service received dozens of reports of flash flooding.
“With its nonstop driving rain and temperatures in the 60s, Saturday’s storm could have easily been mistaken for a fall or spring nor’easter,” the Capital Weather Gang wrote. “But it was a once-in-a-generation July coastal storm that drew vast amounts of tropical moisture and unleashed historic amounts of rain in the D.C. region.”
The excessive rainfall followed a record-setting 2.79 inches that fell just four days prior, after no measurable rain during the first 16 days of July. That year would become D.C.'s wettest on record.
Here are other notables from this day:
- Average high: 90
- Average low: 73
- Record high: 104 (1926)
- Record low: 56 (1909)
- Record rainfall: 4.00 inches (2018)
