After more than an inch of rain, Lawrence’s rainfall total is just shy of year-to-date average

photo by: National Weather Service
Lawrence is on track to match its year-to-date rainfall average after receiving nearly an inch and a half of rain on Wednesday afternoon.
By this time in an average year, Lawrence would have received 16.25 inches of precipitation, said Kyle Poage, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Topeka. He said Lawrence was just shy of that Wednesday afternoon after receiving 1.45 inches of rain, bringing the year-to-date total to 15.29 inches.
Wednesday’s rain is expected to taper off into the evening hours with a 20% chance of storms overnight and temperatures dropping to about 70 degrees, Poage said. The heat will return on Thursday with a high of 90 degrees and continue to climb into the weekend.
The weekend will be hot, with highs in the mid-90s, and there is a 40% chance for more rain overnight on Saturday, Poage said.
Lawrence police Sgt. Drew Fennelly said that the rain had not significantly impacted the department’s workload. He said about five crashes and one motorist assist had been reported in Lawrence during the day on Wednesday, and that five crashes would not be unusual for Lawrence on any given day.
Deputies with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, meanwhile, had responded to only a couple of motorist assist calls on K-10 with vehicles having slid into a ditch, said George Diepenbrock, a spokesperson with the office. He said that no weather-related injury accidents had been reported.