Monday's rain shatters 24-hour rainfall record for December in Portland

So how wet is it? The record rainfall for Monday was a cheap .86 of an inch set back in on Dec. 7, 1996. Rainfall for the 24 hours ending at 2 p.m. Monday at Portland International Airport was 3.32 inches -- shattering the old 24-hour December record of 2.59 inches set on December 12-13, 1977. [Clinton Rockey, a forecaster for the National Weather Service in Portland,] said rain fell at a rate of a half-inch an hour during the peak of the precipitation Monday morning, but began to taper off around 1:30 p.m. But the damage was already done in many places across the metro area, where high water closed roads, triggered landslides and sent rocks cascading down hillsides