Over 9 inches of rain in two hours, a summer's worth of rain in one day, numerous water rescues and damaged vehicles. Such phrases were commonly heard August 12th and 13th, 2014 as a historic flash flooding event brought extreme rainfall to coastal areas of the Northeast. First, the Washington - Baltimore corridor was drenched with 3 - 5 inches of rain, with a narrow area of intense rainfall rates that dumped as much as 5 - 10 inches across southern Baltimore and northern Anne Arundel County. The Baltimore/Washington International Airport was especially hard hit where as many as 100 cars in long term parking had flood waters up to their headlights! The 6.30 inches measured at the airport ranked as the second highest one day rainfall total ever in Baltimore's 142 year weather history.
Unfortunately, the heaviest rain did not stop there. Places in southern and coastal New Jersey were also slammed with heavy rainfall on the 12th with nearly 9 inches recorded in Millville, NJ and a widespread 4 - 6 inches along the Jersey Shore stretching from Monmouth County down to Cumberland County. Again, rainfall rates of 2 - 5 inches per hour pounded the region, which overwhelmed road and highway drainage systems. Despite being a 1 in 100 year event for Millville, NJ, it was not the highest one day rainfall total ever for the Garden State. That honor remains with Tuckerton, NJ which recorded over 14 inches on August 19, 1939 according to the Office of the New Jersey State Climatologist.
As if this were not enough, another narrow strip of torrential rainfall bombarded central Long Island for consecutive hours during the early morning of August 13th, 2014. After 8 hours of incredible rainfall rates, including 9.71 inches recorded between 5 AM and 7 AM, Islip finished the day with an astounding 13.51 inches! This preliminarily ranks as the highest one day rainfall total for the State of New York and combined with the additional 0.56 inches of rain that fell on other days of the month, brought August 2014 to a grand total of 14.07 inches setting a new all-time wettest August record for Islip! The previous record stood at 13.78 inches set in August 1990. To add further perspective, this ranks as a 1 in over 1000 year event.
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