July breaks record for rain

PHOTOGRAPHER: Barry Sloan

Jim Reed putts in the rain on the 18th green as John Bramley, left, Tom Batter and Bob Zulick look on during the Guilderland Lettermen Classic at the Orchard Creek Golf Club in Altamont Friday. Umbrellas have been a common sight lately as the region set a

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Ulysses S. Grant was president the last time the Capital Region received as much rain as it did this July.

Storms dumped 9.36 inches of rain on Albany in 1871. That stood as the wettest July on record for the area until 11 a.m. Friday, when a persistent storm system brought the total rainfall to 9.37 inches.

“And we’ve gotten more rain since then,” said Hugh Johnson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Albany.

Johnson said the wet weather is resulting from a southern shift of the jet stream — the flow of upper atmosphere wind — which has also strengthened this summer. The result has been more moisture being lifted into the atmosphere that becomes rain when it meets the cold air mass moving south from Canada.

The soaking prompted the weather service to issue flash flood warnings throughout the afternoon for southern Washington, southeastern Saratoga, Rensselaer, eastern Schenectady and Albany counties. The deluge created a number of temporary road closures, including Route 4 near Saratoga National Historic Park in Stillwater and Route 20 near Stuyvesant Plaza in Guilderland.

Some areas were expected to receive up to 2 inches of rain before the system departed the area in the evening.

Thunderstorms earlier in the week coupled with the rain Friday forced the owners of the Lebanon Valley Speedway in Columbia County to cancel the entire slate of races scheduled for the weekend. Parts of the speedway were submerged by more than 3 feet of water following a downpour on Wednesday, which dropped up to 7 inches on some areas.

But the wet weather wasn’t enough to deter a determined group of parents and Little League baseball players from starting the first games of the state championship in Glenville. Tournament Director Bill Purtell said an afternoon lull in the rain allowed them to prepare the field and continue with the two scheduled games with minimal delay.

“No way,” he said when asked if they considered canceling. “Not this group.”

Johnson said Friday’s steady rain could even eclipse the wettest summer month in the Capital Region’s history. In August 1871, the Capital Region recorded 10.59 inches of rain.

WET RACES IN 1871

The unusually damp conditions from the summer were even noted by a correspondent covering the meet at the Saratoga Race Course in an Aug. 21, 1871 article published in The New York Times. The reporter made note of the chilling rain that had drenched the meet, canceled a day of races and prompted an exodus from the bustling city.

“People shivered and chattered on the piazzas. All the windows were closed for the first time this season and fires were made, around which benumbed guests gathered and made merry over the situation,” the reporter wrote. “The racetrack, of course, was a plaster of mud, and the day’s sport was unavoidably postponed.”

Rain this week soaked the Spa City during opening day of the track and again before Friday’s twilight races. The New York Racing Association shifted four of five races off the track’s turf, due to the wet conditions, and two dozen horses were scratched from the nine-race card.

“Maybe this means August won’t be as rainy,” said Dan Silver, a NYRA spokesman. “Hopefully, we’re getting all the wet weather out of the way in July.”

The flooded section of road in Guilderland — a busy stretch between Schoolhouse Road and Fuller Road — is one that town officials are aiming to improve with a $650,000 state-funded capital project that is expected to get under way later this month. The project will allow the defunct McKownville Reservoir southwest of the shopping plaza to act as a stormwater control reservoir.

Work includes replacing a segment of drainage pipe that is too narrow to allow runoff from the former reservoir to drain into surrounding waterways. The project also includes a reduction in the reservoir’s water level, so that it can hold more runoff during storm events, and aesthetic improvements to make the basin appear more park-like.

Water naturally flows into the reservoir and begins to creep onto Route 20 when the basin fills. Guilderland’s Water Department can draw down the reservoir’s level if there’s sufficient warning before a major storm event.

“But even when they do open the valve completely, it takes days for them to get the level of the reservoir down significantly,” Supervisor Ken Runion said Friday. “This project will make it look attractive and yet allow it to retain more water.”