John McGinley, Peak to Peak.

Did this get your attention? Sure we get tropical rain this time of year, but setting a U.S record? No, this honor went to our erstwhile sister city Nederland, Texas during last year’s Hurricane Harvey.

Over a five-day period Nederland received 64.5 inches of rain shattering the previous record of 52 inches associated with a 1950 Hawaiian tropical system. Nederland is a city of 17,000 about 70 miles east of Houston. In doing a post-storm damage survey the National Weather Service sought to find the location of Harvey’s heaviest rain deposition. Rain gauges across southeast Texas were found, data recovered, and the gauges tested for accuracy. Slowly but surely the maximum rain seemed concentrated at a number of gauges in an area near Beaumont, Texas. At a climate station in Nederland, five miles southeast, the peak was found and the rest is history.

Should Nederland, Colorado be jealous? Well, we do have the record 96-inch Silver Lake snow, and a Frozen Dead Guy……and national notoriety, and our cars never had to float down First Street.

(Originally published in the September 6, 2018, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)