From NWS
1993: During a summer of extreme rainfall and flooding the statewide average rainfall for July was 10.50 inches making this the wettest month on record in Iowa. Measurable rain fell somewhere in the state on all but two days of the month. Dubuque and Waterloo set their all-time records for June and July total rainfall, and at Cedar Rapids the total rainfall of 34.4 inches from April through July exceeded their normal amount for the entire year.

1943: A severe hail storm struck the Boone area with a resident writing that “in the city of Boone there was considerable damage to electrick signs, windows and roofs. Two greenhouses lost 2,300 panes of glass. Some automobile tops and some roofs were damaged in the southeast part of town. Crops were badly damaged or totally destroyed on about 200 farms, or on about 8,000 acres of land. Previous to the storm there were prospects of bumper yields of corn, soybeans and hemp, but after the hail some fields contained only short stumps of broken cornstalks.”

31 July 1861 → The world record for one-year rainfall was set: 1,042 inches at Cherrapunji, India. 31 July 1964 → Country singer “Gentleman Jim” Reeves flew his single-engine Beechcraft plane into a thunderstorm near Brentwood, TN. The plane crashed, killing Reeves and his manager. Reeves was 40 years old at the time of the crash. 31 July 1976 → A stationary thunderstorm produced more than 10 inches of rain which funneled into the narrow Thompson River Canyon of northeastern Colorado. A wall of water 6 to 8 feet high and traveling at 50 mph wreaked a 25 mile path of destruction from Estes Park to Loveland. 156 unsuspecting campers were killed. Ten miles of U.S. Highway 34 were totally destroyed. 31 July 1993 → Alabama finished its hottest July on record since 1895, while receiving less than half the normal rainfall. Meanwhile, the Great Flood of 1993 was reaching its peak in the Midwest and was eventually responsible for 48 deaths and $23.1 billion in damage.

Posted under Weather History