Post tropical rain storm Debby passed through west central New York Friday afternoon August 9 putting eastern New York and western New England in a cloudy and windy tropical warm sector through the day with a threat for brief spin-up tornadoes along with strong southerly gradient wind from 30-45 mph on average in gusts and off and on tropical downpours.
The main rain event for most of the area was brief but intense during the late afternoon and early evening as the center of Debby passed to the north into Canada pulling a narrow line of tropical downpours and thunderstorms from west to east across the area generating rainfall rates of up to 2″ per hour. Widespread poor drainage type flooding occurred as a result which was maximized between 4 and 6pm in the Capital Region. A WeatherNet 6 observation in Colonie noted 1.33″ of rain falling between 4 and 5pm.
An event total of 2.91″ of rain fell for the day at the climate reporting site at the Albany airport which not only was a 24 hour rainfall record for the date but also marked the wettest day at Albany since 3.92″ of rain was measured with tropical storm Isaias on August 4, 2020…