Kevin Myatt is The Roanoke Times' weather columnist.

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2009 has half a hundred in the rain gauge.

With Sunday's 1.27 inches of rain, Roanoke topped 50 inches of rain for the year at 50.40 inches. That's more than 4 feet of rain.

Just a couple of hundredths more in the gauge between now and the end of the year, which is almost certain, and it will be one of the 10 wettest years on record dating to 1912. It is already the wettest since more than 53 inches fell in 2003, and about 8 inches above the normal rainfall for an entire year, with plenty of time left for additional precipitation.

It is highly unlikely this year's total will catch the record of 58.87 inches in 1948.

A Weather Journal blog reader asked about the number of days this year with rain, and the number of weekends.

In Roanoke, there have been 121 days with measurable precipitation out of the 350 days to date in 2009. And 24 of 49 weekends have had measurable precipitation in Roanoke on one or both days.

So it is more than just perception that many weekends have been wet -- about half of them have been.

This weekend might be yet another with precipitation, though of a flaky variety.

We'll keep an eye on the blog and in Friday's column about upcoming winter storm potential. The next couple of weeks could be very interesting.

Weather Journal runs on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.