If you thought Friday evening's downpour was exceptionally heavy, you were right.According to Terry Foley, who records weather information from his home in northwest Powell, the clouds unloaded a half-inch of inch of rain within 30 minutes. By the time the storm ended completely, a total of .53 inches had fallen on the area.

The rainfall total was almost 50 percent of the 1.05 inches of precipitation in Powell during the first five months of 2009. The amount was nearly equal to 10 percent of the precipitation for all of 2008, which totaled 5.72 inches.

Friday's rain raised the total rainfall for June to 2.3 inches as of Monday morning with two more days to go in the month. The precipitation total for 2009 so far stood at 3.35 inches as of press time on Wednesday.

Strong winds with gusts up to 40 miles per hour accompanied the storm, Foley said.

Foley said he had researched historical precipitation for June from 1907 until this year from the Western Regional Climate Center and the University of Wyoming Powell Field Station archives. According to his findings, this June has been the 12th wettest on record, although records for five years were incomplete. The wettest year on record was 1969, when 3.68 inches fell. Only eight years earlier, in 1961, rainfall for June totaled .03 inches — the driest on record. This week's forecast from the National Weather Service predicts only a slight chance of thunderstorms.