The strong storm which moved up the East Coast on December 26-27 brought record rainfall amounts from North Carolina to Connecticut. National Climatic Data Center reports show 196 daily precipitation records broken and 7 tied for a total of 203 across the U.S. on the day after Christmas. Among major National Weather Service (NWS) reporting locations, the following list shows the new daily record precipitation amounts and the previous records. (Except for Bridgeport and Islip, all of the records were set on December 26.) The oldest record broken was from 1873 at Wilmington NC. The previous records were set just 3 years ago at Cape Hatteras and Atlantic City. On average, the new records exceeded the old ones by 21%.
Location Amount Old Record Charlotte NC CLT 1.72 1.70 1938 Wilmington NC ILM 1.83 1.43 1873 Cape Hatteras NC HSE 1.79 1.62 2009 Norfolk VA ORF 2.53 1.93 1890 Wallops Island VA WAL 2.33 1.28 1969 Blacksburg VA RNK 1.01 0.75 1973 Salisbury MD SBY 1.75 1.70 1969 Washington DC DCA 1.42 1.31 1943 Washington-Dulles VA IAD 1.41 1.00 1969 Atlantic City NJ ACY 2.60 2.44 2009 Bridgeport CT BDR 0.55 0.51 1949 (12-27) Islip NY ISP 0.53 0.40 1984 (12-27)