June is the rainiest month of the year for most of Kansas. Isolated thunderstorms can produce heavy downpours. On June 22, 1947 one such storm hit just to our east in Holt, Missouri. The recorded twelve inches of rain fell in 42 minutes, establishing a world rainfall record. The record was tied on January 24-25, 1956, at the Kilauea Sugar Plantation in Hawaii, as part of the state record for 24 hour rainfall totals with 38 inches of rain in 24 hours. Of current stations reporting in Kansas, the largest 24 hour rainfall total is less than half that amount. Girard, a National Weather Service Cooperative station in Crawford County, holds the record with 15.84 inches recorded on September 25, 1993.
Mary Knapp, Weather Data Library
mknapp@ksu.edu