Month's worth of rain falls in day

Blame it on El Niño, the quirky weather pattern that's been savaging California with storms.

On Tuesday, 2.24 inches of rain fell at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, said National Weather Service forecaster Bill Deedler.

"That's a pretty good rain for a summer month. For a winter month, that's extraordinary," he said yesterday. February is Michigan's driest month, typically getting a month long total of 1.76 inches of rain.

The storm wrought by El Niño was weakening yesterday, as its center stalled over Ohio.

"The intense development of the storm was spawned by the strong jet stream from the Pacific, through California, into the Gulf of Mexico. From there, it drifted north," Deedler said.

"When you have these strong winds coming off the Pacific, it almost acts like a wall to keep the Arctic jet stream out."

Had temperatures been cold enough for snow, rather than rain, the region would have seen about 2 feet of snow, the forecaster said.

But it wasn't cold enough - and Deedler said that's also a product of El Niño. Michigan is on track for the second-warmest February on record.

That record, with average temperatures of 39.5 degrees, was set in 1882. The state's normal February average temperature is 25.4.

"We're running about 10 degrees above normal," Deedler said.

And that's not the only possible weather record looming for Detroit. The area hasn't had a flake of snow all month, he said. If that continues to March, this month will go on the records books as the first time the area got no snow in February, Deedler said.

Meanwhile, drizzle from the storm continued yesterday.

"We've had considerable standing water," Deedler said. Flood warnings were in effort for the Huron River at Blissfield and for the Rouge River and tributaries in Inskter and Dearborn.

Police blamed a smattering on traffic wrecks on cars hydroplaning on wet roads. Some roads were closed yesterday morning by deep water.

"I thought I was in an ocean," said Warren motorist Mazen Jabboury. His car stalled as he tried to drive through a deep pool of water, the Detroit Free Press reported.

Monroe County also endured flooded roads and some homeowners were bailing out their basements. County Drain Commissioner Rollin Webb said waves in Luna Pier backed up drains as far as a mile inland.

"Our drains couldn't drain out with the lake overtopping its banks and the dikes," he told The Monroe Evening News.

El Nino, a periodic warming of Pacific Ocean waters that affects weather patterns in much of the world, is also blamed for storms that have pounded California, causing flooding, mudslides and 10 deaths. The stretch of storms has caused an estimated $275 million to $300 million damage.

02-19-98