Starship Asterisk*

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=39747 wrote:
<<Though its winds were not particularly powerful when it made landfall in Tawian, slow-moving Typhoon Morakot soaked the southern part of the island with heavy rain between August 3 and 9, 2009. The water-soaked ground slid off the sides of mountains, generating deadly landslides. The largest slide occurred in the southern mountains of Taiwan; as of August 10, at least a hundred people were still missing.



This image of the rainfall accumulation along Morakot’s path through the western Pacific is based on estimates from the near-real-time, Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis, which is produced by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The analysis depends on data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite. Increasing storm intensity (beginning with Tropical Depression) is indicated by darker shades of red. Morakot intensified to Category 2 strength prior to landfall. Highest rainfall totals (greater than 900 millimeters, or about 34 inches) are dark blue, and they are concentrated over the mountains of southern Taiwan. According to BBC news, the flooding in Taiwan is the worst in 50 years.>>

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Morakot_(2009)[/url] wrote:

Code: Select all

Wettest tropical cyclones in Taiwan
Highest known recorded totals

Precipitation 	Storm 	Location
Rank 	(mm) 	(in)
1 	2777 	109.3 	Morakot 2009 	Alishan[40] [41]
2 	1736 	68.35 	Herb 1996 	Alishan[42]
3 	1730 	68.00 	Lynn 1987 	[43]
4 	1672 	65.83 	Carla 1967 	Xinliao[44]
5 	1611 	63.42 	Sinlaku/Marce 2008 	Hopin town[45]
6 	1546 	60.87 	Aere/Marce 2004 	Matala[46]
7 	1431 	56.34 	Nari 2001 	[47]
8 	1248 	49.13 	Gloria 1963 	Baxin[44]
9 	1124 	44.27 	Jangmi/Ofel 2008 	Tatung Town[48]
10 	1090 	42.91 	Nanmadol 2004 	Puluowan[49]

geckzilla wrote:So am I reading this correctly? Looks like Morakot smashed the previous typhoon rainfall record.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Gamede wrote:
<<Cyclone Gamede was among the wettest tropical cyclones on record, dropping more than 5.5 m (18 ft) of rain in a nine-day period on Réunion island in the southwest Indian Ocean. The seventh named storm of the 2006-07 South-West Indian Ocean cyclone season, Gamede formed on February 20 as a tropical depression to the south of Diego Garcia. It tracked generally westward and steadily intensified, passing northwest of Mauritius and Réunion as a broad but moderately intense tropical cyclone. For four days it remained within 400 km (250 mi) of Réunion before accelerating southward.

[The island of Mauritius is renowned for having been the only known home of the dodo.
First sighted by Europeans around 1600 on Mauritius, the dodo became extinct less than eighty years later.



The large size of Gamede resulted in several days of very heavy, continuous rainfall in the mountainous region on Réunion island. The island is the location for several tropical cyclone rainfall records; due to the orography of the island, tropical moisture will travel upward to the volcanic peaks, where it cools and codifies into rainfall. The heaviest totals occurred from February 24 through February 28. Commerson's Crater, located at an elevation of 2.3 km (1.4 mi), reported 2463 mm (97 in) in 48 hours, which is just short of the worldwide record set. Gamede broke worldwide rainfall records between three and nine days, with its total precipitation amounting to 5512 mm (217 in) in Commerson's Crater; Tropical Cyclone Hyacinthe in 1980 remains the wettest tropical cyclone on record, having produced greater totals after ten days. Several locations on the island reported great totals.>>