16th anniversary of the 18 July 1996 heavy rainfall event at Aurora

[Hoar_Frost]

On 17-18 July 1996, a series of MCSs occurred across northern Illinois. The rainfall over a 24-hour period beginning Wednesday morning (the 17th) totalled as high as 16.94 in. at the Aurora CO-OP station (located near the Fox River/ the intersection of I-88 and Illinois Hwy. 25); it is, of course, conceivable that there were locally higher totals that missed official gauges. Nonetheless, 16.94 in. is the highest 24-hour rainfall total ever recorded in Illinois. I was quite young at the time, five years old, but I do remember my house's basement flooding with sewage because the street and sewers in my neighborhood were being reconstructed at that time. My dad reckons there was about 12 in. of rain here.

For anybody who is interested, following is a link to a lengthy Illinois State Water Survey report on the event that was edited by Stan Changnon: http://www.isws.illinois.edu/pubdoc/MP/ISWSMP-182.pdf

[Chicago WX]

I remember this quite well. Got off "easy" with only 4-5 inches of rain in Kankakee. But we were heading north to Wisconsin late on the 18th for a weekend music festival, and had to detour around a couple of flooded stretches of Route 47. Amazing amounts of water.

[A-L-E-K]

one of my favorites