Worst rain in 1,000 years causes billion$ of damage in Florida. Except it's actually not true . . .

Photo above - alligator swimming alongside a car in Florida during a rainy day. Not this week - some other day

Miami – and Sarasota – both got 6.5 inches of rain on June 11th. The media immediately claimed this was a “once in a 1,000 year event”. Skeptic that I am, I googled this. And of course it turns out to be complete BS. See link below.

Granted, 6 inches in a day is A LOT. Especially in urban areas which have about 90% of their surfaces paved, and are hoping to divert all that water into their puny storm drains. So yes, I'm not shocked to see Miami and Sarasota photos of cars knee deep in water. I saw the same sort of pictures about a decade ago, in NYC, when their drainage pumps failed during a rainy day. Here in Tampa we don't pave every square inch of the land, and a lot of homes and apartments still have actual lawns. So, it was soggy, but we didn't fear for our lives.

Okay, so when WAS the rainiest day ever in Florida? Apparently October 12th, 1947. Yeps - 2 lifetimes ago. Florida got 15 inches. More than double Monday's fake 1,000 year record. Of course Miami wasn't 90% covered in concrete then. 1947 was a disaster, but nothing that could be considered an existential threat. Just an ordinary hurricane.

Rainiest year ever? That would also be 1947, with 70 inches. Florida's average rainfall is 55 inches. 2023 saw 53 inches, below average. As were the preceding 3 years. The driest year on record was 2006, with 41 inches. See where this is headed?

It's likely 2024 could have higher rainfall than average. It's UNLIKELY that both the above and below average measurements are the result of global warming. Or the breakup of the Antarctic ice sheet, etc.

However, global warming IS REAL. The current ice age peaked about 20,000 years ago. Cuomo Sapiens was barely holding on then, having mistimed our migration to Europe. Just 2 million people on planet earth, mostly in Africa sunning themselves comfortably. European Cuomo sapiens had already killed off ALL the Neanderthals thousands of years before that, so it wasn't clan v. clan wargames with spears which hurt out population. It was the glaciers the glaciers everywhere. So our ancestors turn to killing Mammoths. All of them. Chased them over cliffs, where they tumbled to their deaths, to become mammoth burgers.

Since the ice age peak most of the glaciers have retreated. We still have some in Canada, Alaska, Greenland, etc. And we still have ice caps at both the north and south poles. Which doesn't happen unless we're still IN an ice age. Which we are. Slow melt.

And those ice caps are going to keep melting, no matter what kind of car you drive, or how many tax rebates there are on solar panels. That's not to say we shouldn't continue to switch from coal and crude oil to solar. I'm on board with that. Just don't expect it to halt the ice caps from melting. Sea levels will rise as much as 6 feet by the year 2100. And by 195 feet when all the ice caps and glaciers are completely gone. That's when earth's climate will finally be “normal" again. And that sea level rise is going to cost us a LOT of money. Better not spend it all on tax rebates for solar panels, okay? We'll need some for moving vans.

I'm just sayin' . . .

~1,000-Year Deluge: Florida’s Rainfall Shatters Historical Records (scitechdaily.com)~

~1947 Florida–Georgia hurricane - Wikipedia~

This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »

windinhishair · 61-69, M

Once again, you fail to understand what you are reading. The event that occurred in Florida was according to the link, a one-in-500 to one -in-1000 year event. That is, as the article indicates, based on a statistical evaluation of rainfall frequency data. Nothing you've presented indicates that claim is wrong, or as you say, BS. The 1947 event is interesting, but has little to do with what happened this week.

When meteorologists say an event is a one-in-1000 year event, what that really means is that it has a 0.1% chance of occurring during a given year. But when you have one, the next year you also have a 0.1% chance of having one. You could have two such events in consecutive years, or go hundreds of years without one. It doesn't mean that if you have one such event, you aren't going to have another one for a long time. So the 1947 rainfall may have been an even greater anomaly, but it doesn't mean that this week's occurrence isn't a one-in-1000 year event.

Having said that, extreme rainfall events are happening more frequently than the old probability tables indicate, due to global climate change. Warm air can hold more water vapor than cold air, so more intense rainfall is an expected consequence of a warming climate. And that is just what we are experiencing here in the US. The rainfall intensity data needs to be frequently updated and used in drainage planning so future rainfall events don't have catastrophic impacts.

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@windinhishair you KNOW that the newspaper intended readers to think of this as "1000 years". Not a standard deviation equation which only statistics majors in grad school ever look at.

the reporter certainly didn't.

windinhishair · 61-69, M

@SusanInFlorida It is a common misconception. I've done work in this field, and have had people tell me that they had a 100-year flood this year, so they are safe for another 100 years. But it doesn't work that way. The event appeared to be correctly stated, but it is a statistical event that most people don't understand. Still, it puts these events in context. Everyone can understand a 1000-year event is more rare than a 100-year event.

ElwoodBlues · M

@SusanInFlorida Speaking of misleading, the "12-15 inches" was over the "weekend" of Oct 11-12; may even have been a three-day rainfall, given that the hurricane impact extended from Oct 10-13.

You are attempting to compare a one-day rainfall with a three-day hurricane rainfall; apples to oranges.

UPDATE

It might be worthwhile to follow the scitechdaily article's link to its source data
https://www.wfla.com/weather/sarasota-rainfall-is-nearly-a-1-in-1000-year-event/

As seen from the NOAA graphic below, the purple bullseye shows the area where the 3-hour rain totals that fell from roughly 5 p.m. – 8 p.m. reached a recurrence interval, or return period, that peaks at the top of the scale: 1-in-200 years. But certain localized areas within the bullseye met the criteria for a 1000 year event.

It was also the all-time record for the most rain in one hour at the Sarasota-Bradenton Airport with 3.93″ falling, as seen below.

It should be noted that these kind of 1-in-100+ year events happen almost every year somewhere in Florida. But the chance that it happens in any one location, in any given year is very small – like the 3 hour rainfall in Sarasota which – in any year – should only have a 1-in-1000 chance of happening.