April showers

From Syracuse.com:

April 2011 became Syracuse's wettest April ever this morning.  The old mark, 8.12 inches set in April 1976, fell around 2 a.m. as a wave of rain splashed over Syracuse Hancock International Airport, National Weather Service figures show. The new record is 8.53 inches. 

Almost 2 inches of rain fell on Tuesday April 26.

And here's the assessment of the consequences, from ynn.com:

ONONDAGA COUNTY, N.Y. -- A heavy rain storm and backed up sewers and the City of Syracuse faces a mini-disaster. Street flooding. But the same heavy rains that led to that problem are contributing to another, much larger one. The water is rising on lakes, rivers and streams across the region.


Onondaga Lake is at flood stage. Officials there postponing plans to start the boating season this weekend.  We can't allow boats to come in here. You can't even see where the break wall is, so it's a dangerous situation to have boats come in and out," said Onondaga County Parks Commissioner William Lansley.

But the problem is everywhere. They can't install docks on Oneida Lake because the hinges the docks attach to are underwater.

Some houses along the lake shore are watching lake water rise, while they're also seeing water levels creeping up in areas behind their homes, along inland streams.

"We're looking at the normal progression of water. So it's everything coming together to the one way street that takes it to the outlet," said Onondaga County Emergency Management Director Peter Alberti.

Everywhere the water is moving fast and running high and unlike the street flooding earlier this week, these high waters are not going away.

The experts say it would take about a week for all of this flood water to recede and for things to get back to normal. But that's a week without rain. And no one's expecting that anytime soon. And dealing with continuing floods and the damage they're causing will cost local governments plenty of money.

"Each of the jurisdictions, towns and villages, the cities, the county, school districts, are doing assessments of how much damage occurred. What do we have to fix? " Alberti said.