Wichita got more rain on Tuesday than it had for past 2 months. But was that enough?

West Wichita saw more rainfall Tuesday night than in the past 70 days combined.

But it wasn’t a record. It’s more an indicator that Sedgwick County has been in what the National Weather Service calls an exceptional drought.

Wichita received 0.90 inches of rain in the span of an hour from 10:20 to 11:20 p.m. Tuesday at Eisenhower National Airport, compared with the previous 70-day combined total of 0.74 inches, National Weather Service in Wichita meteorologist Vanessa Pearce said.

The historical record for Tuesday was back in 2006, when Wichita received 1.96 inches of rainfall, Pearce said.

The Jabara Airport in east Wichita recorded 0.56 inches Tuesday.

Some areas in the county had higher amounts than Wichita from 7 a.m. Tuesday to 7 a.m. Wednesday. Around 1.53 inches of rainfall were recorded near Andale, and the highest amount in Sedgwick County was in Mulvane, with a total of 3.50 inches, Pearce said.

The months of April through June see the most rainfall all year, though numbers for this year do not reflect that.

On average for this time of year, Wichita will have seen 8.82 inches of rainfall. So far only 4.71 inches have been recorded, meteorologist Eric Metzger said.

“It’s been about three years since we’ve seen any significant rain,” Metzger said. “I’d compare this to the dust bowls that happened in Kansas decades earlier.”

Metzger added that the rainfall from Tuesday helped, but it is not enough.

“When it’s been dry for so long, any amount of rain will seep right into the soil underground and not have a chance to be runaway rain.”