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Insane rates of rainfall


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For people that don't believe in climate change, and are at-least 40 years old.  I'd like to know your thoughts on why these types of rainfall rates were non-existent in the whole 20th century, but nowadays are so common...practically anywhere.  

 

I decided to just go with a basic question, to make it easy for them. Instead of the whole, spread-out, political route.   

 

The same has been occurring with snowfall rates in the winter as well. 
 

 

 

* AT 123 PM CDT...DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED THUNDERSTORMS PRODUCING
  HEAVY RAIN ACROSS THE WARNED AREA. OVER 4 INCHES OF RAIN HAVE
  FALLEN IN THE WARNED AREA OVER THE PAST HOUR.
FLASH FLOODING IS
  EXPECTED TO BEGIN SHORTLY. THESE THUNDERSTORMS ARE NEARLY
  STATIONARY OVER I-10 NEAR BAYTOWN.

 

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I don't think we can say that those rainfall rates didn't occur in the 20th century.  The technology/observation networks for much of that time weren't that good to be able to nail down hourly rainfall rates.

 

That being said, there's clear evidence that extreme rain events in general have been happening more frequently.

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I don't think we can say that those rainfall rates didn't occur in the 20th century.  The technology/observation networks for much of that time weren't that good to be able to nail down hourly rainfall rates.

 

That being said, there's clear evidence that extreme rain events in general have been happening more frequently.

 

 

pretty much anytime during the 80's and 90's , this data should be easily locate-able through hourly observations.  I doubt you'll find any observation with 4+ inches per hour rates. 

 

I mean this in a general sense as well.. As there are other ways to measure this.  For instance, a local creek where I used to live during my childhood would only flood once the 'larger' rivers downstream were over their flood stage....now, this is no longer needed, since the rates are so insane.   And the same creek can now flood with just an hour's worth of rainfall.   This never occurred during the whole 20th century.  But occurs frequently in the 21st. 

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pretty much anytime during the 80's and 90's , this data should be easily locate-able through hourly observations.  I doubt you'll find any observation with 4+ inches per hour rates. 

I was living in Long Beach, MS during an extreme flooding episode in May 1995.  NOAA report on the event - http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ssd/techmemo/sr183.htm

 

Quote: "at the Saucier Experiment Forest Rain Station, 5.9 in of rain was measured in one hour from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. May 9. This is believed to be a record for Mississippi."

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your favorite talking point, you just ctrl-ving at this point?

 

We went over the topic before and no upward trend emerged. I don't just read a single paper and say, well... I'm an alarmist and this looks like it will help my cause.

 

puukukuiyear.PNG

 

The majority of graphs look like this one.

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=rainfall+stream+gauge+by+year&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=643&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjo-p27kZbNAhXHNiYKHTkFDbUQ_AUIBygC#tbm=isch&q=rainfall+by+year+graph&imgrc=d95k_qOZ8DVBjM%3A

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For people that don't believe in climate change, and are at-least 40 years old.  I'd like to know your thoughts on why these types of rainfall rates were non-existent in the whole 20th century, but nowadays are so common...practically anywhere.  

 

I decided to just go with a basic question, to make it easy for them. Instead of the whole, spread-out, political route.   

 

The same has been occurring with snowfall rates in the winter as well. 

 

I'll just put this here.  

 

usarain.jpg

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you got pawned on this. Now if you said more heavy rainfall events are occurring.... but your opening salvo was dead wrong.

 

Some quasi-scientific support for this, from 2 long-term sites for which I have numbers, Central park, back thru 1876 (don't have 1871-75) and Farmington, Maine, starting 1/1/1893.   KNYC has recorded 95 calendar-day precip events of 3"+ (don't have full-storm data), or an average of 6.8 per decade over 140y5m records.  Farmington has had only 39 such events, for just 3.2 per decade, but by dropping their threshold to 2.5" one finds 84 events, for the same 6.8 per decade.  By dividing the actual per-decade events by 6.8, I find how recent decades compare to the overall averages, shown as percent of avg. (2010s weighted by its fewer years):

 

.............NYC....Farmington

1960s......74%....118%

1970s....192%......73%

1980s....163%....103%

1990s....103%....132%

2000s....148%....191%

2010s....161%....206%

 

NYC has been AN since the droughty 60s, but "evenly" AN, while Farmington's increase is recent and dramatic.  Only 2 stations so SSS applies.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Impressive rains in West Virginia.  Haven't been following it but I'd have to assume that topography made the situation worse?  In terms of human impact, not easy to kill that many people in a single flood in the US nowadays unless you're talking about mountainous or heavily populated areas.

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Impressive rains in West Virginia.  Haven't been following it but I'd have to assume that topography made the situation worse?  In terms of human impact, not easy to kill that many people in a single flood in the US nowadays unless you're talking about mountainous or heavily populated areas.

 

Most (all) floods in Appalachia end up in towns that are in a valley or crevice between the mountains. If the storm parallels a major river through the mountains, the town below is screwed. Like I said, 10 miles or so and we wouldn't be talking about this.

 

I remember receiving 7 inches of rain in ONE NIGHT in the Smokey Mountain NP. The river was raging, but there were no towns in the path and it just washed through the forest sides. That was about 20 years ago.

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