Rainfall Nearly Breaks 134-Year-Old Record After City Flooded

Pittsburgh has experienced an excessively wet spring, nearly breaking the Steel City’s 134-year-old record for rainfall amounts.

The heavy rainfall comes as severe weather has gripped other parts of the nation this spring as well. Dozens of tornadoes have torn through the United States, and a severe heat wave gripped southern Texas this month, pushing temperatures to summertime levels with heat indexes above 115 degrees Fahrenheit in some regions.

Excessive rainfall also has fallen in eastern Texas and Louisiana, creating dangerous flooding that has swept through cities in those regions. At one point, the floods were so severe that they swept caskets out of graves.

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Over the past few months, several moisture-laden storms have inundated Pittsburgh with rain. In early April, meteorologists predicted that the city could receive an entire month of rain in only two days when severe storms moved through the region. Not even a month later, the National Weather Service (NWS) warned of “extremely dangerous” floods that hit the region as rainfall rates exceeded 3 to 4 inches per hour.

During the late April storms, flooding was so severe that Etna, a small borough in Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County, urged its residents to evacuate with their animals.

Now, meteorologists are saying that the city is more than 8 inches above its average rainfall so far this year. Rainfall amounts through Wednesday were only .05 inches away from breaking a record set in 1890.

“#Pittsburgh continues to record pace for rainfall so far this year. We are 8.22″ above normal for the year with 23.83″ so far,” the National Weather Service (NWS) office in Pittsburgh posted on X, formerly Twitter. “The most through May 29th is 23.88″ way back in 1890!”

In a follow-up post, the NWS office added that if no more rain were to fall until July 28, the city would be back on track for average rainfall for the year.

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April rainfall amounts also were the most the city had seen in more than 100 years. Newsweek previously reported that last month was the wettest April Pittsburgh had seen since records began in 1871.

Newsweek reached out to the NWS Pittsburgh office by phone for comment.

Rain showers moved through the region on Wednesday, but meteorologists are forecasting a dry weekend for Pittsburgh.

“Dry weather and moderating temperature is expected today through Saturday before the next round of showers and low probability thunderstorms arrive late Saturday night into Sunday,” the office posted on X.

As of Thursday morning, there were no NWS weather alerts for the Pittsburgh area.