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Chicago Smashes Record For Precipitation

Precipitation
Precipitation trends. (Credit: National Weather Service)

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Remember all that talk about how dry it was last year?

A lot has changed since then.

The first sixth months of 2013 are the wettest on record, according to the National Weather Service. (At least since the NWS started tracking data back in the 1880s)

Chicago smashed the old record by more than two inches.

And the six-month total of 28.46 inches tops the total precipitation for all of 2012.

Here are the wettest six-month totals:

1) 2013 28.46"
2) 1975 26.19"
3) 2009 25.75"
4) 1993 25.53"
5) 1882 25.17"

The year-to-date total is about 12 inches above the norm, the NWS said.

Last year, there were only 13.1 inches of precipitation for the first six months of the year, and 26.9 for all of 2012.

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