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A Hawaiian island got about 50 inches of rain in 24 hours

• porlune 9y ago
  10 years ago the same island had similar flooding: http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/4687248/rain-continues-to-cause-flooding-on-kauai http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/4687248/rain-continues-to... edit: Also 26 years ago https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1991/12/16/flash-floods-kill-three-on-hawaiian-island/7d8f3ba4-31cd-49a6-8188-f8598de13752/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1991/12/16/f...
  • librexpr 9y ago
    Your first link is pretty light on details, but your second link from 26 years ago says that the rain was 15.33 inches in one part of the island, 10.88 in another, and 6.68 in another. Compared to that, the 50 inches in 24 hours this month are in a class of their own.
• tambre 9y ago
  50" = 127cm
  • kome 9y ago
    Thank you for keeping spreading civilization among the barbarians ;)
    • anvandare 9y ago
      $ units ... You have: 50 * 12 * 12 inch^3 You want: dm^3 * 117.98686 / 0.00847552 You have: 118 liter per (50 * 12 * 12 inch^3) You want: hogshead per rod^3 * 533.44715 / 0.0018745999 533.44 hogsheads to a cubed rod! Gadzooks!
    • dang 9y ago
      We ban accounts that post nationalistic flamebait, so please don't post like this again. Tired clichés like bickering over measurement systems aren't needed either. I get that you intended it as a joke, but the hivemind doesn't consider that when going to war. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  • blattimwind 9y ago
    Quite interesting that rain in America is measured in inches ... per square meter.
    • maxerickson 9y ago
      It might be reported that way, the measurement is not so. https://www.weather.gov/iwx/coop_8inch https://www.weather.gov/iwx/coop_8inch
    • detaro 9y ago
      no, just "inches". If you report the height, the surface area is irrelevant.
• marcoperaza 9y ago
  To preface, I am inclined to agree with the anthropogenic climate change hypothesis. But the claims in this article are no better than climate change skeptics pointing to a particularly cold winter or mild summer as evidence for their position. How can you possibly conclude this is caused by climate change vs. being a 100, 200, or 1000 year storm? Freak weather events have been occurring for billions of years before the industrial revolution. Climate change is a gradual process that may in fact make such storms more likely, but pinning any single storm on climate change is suspect.
  • static_noise 9y ago
    We would have to wait for a few decades to come to such conclusions with scientific methods. It's a political decision to market the event as such.
  • chapium 9y ago
    "The flooding on Kauai is consistent with an extreme rainfall that comes with a warmer atmosphere," said Chip Fletcher, a leading expert on the impact of climate change on Pacific island communities. Because no one can know the entire body of knowledge, we divide our understanding of the world among us. Some of us study the earth and climate and accumulate expertise on the subject matter.
    • marcoperaza 9y ago
      “Consistent with” does not establish much at all, other than that the event does not disprove climate change. An event tells us nothing about climate change if it is consistent both with and without climate change. My withdrawing $40 from my bank account is consistent with me having no cash at all left in my wallet. It’s also consistent with me already having some cash but needing more. The event, the withdrawing of the cash, does not tell us whether my wallet was empty.
      • sykh 9y ago
        What is the goal of your comments? Are you trying to convince people that when there is an increase in anomalous weather patterns we shouldn’t say it’s due to climate change? At what point would you say these things are a result of climate change? Do you deny the reality of climate change? Do you agree that it is a reality but are fighting against people ignoring the fact that an individual event might have a different cause? Due to humans releasing massive amounts of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere there is more energy in the system. Clearly this increase in energy leads to anomalous behavior. It’s ok to point this out.
• thotaway 9y ago
  Why do we feel sympathy for people who invade a natural environment they barely understand, and then suffer the consequences? How is this a natural disaster when it’s only a disaster for completely unnatural, man made things?
  • GlenTheMachine 9y ago
    People have lived on the north shore of Kauai since about 800 AD, and they have had houses and roads which were subject to extreme weather events since about a week after they arrived. And people have lived in the Pacific Islands for a lot longer than that - Hawaii was the last Pacific Island chain to be inhabited. If you believe that humans “invaded” Kauai then, if you're being consistent, you should probably also believe we invaded everywhere except sub-Saharan Africa. Also, “sympathy” is a defining human characteristic.
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    • toomanybeersies 9y ago
      Strictly speaking, New Zealand was the last Pacific Island chain to be inhabited.
      • GlenTheMachine 9y ago
        Noted, thank you.
  • dpark 9y ago
    What are you talking about? Are you under the impression that people just recently settled Kauai and this is the typical rain pattern there? Or are you implying that Earth itself has been invaded by humans?
  • eigenschwarz 9y ago
    Passive aggressively glib. Would 'we' feel sympathy for the people of California if/when the Big One hits and flattens cities, kill thousands, and levies hundreds of billions in damage? Or if/when massive flooding from a Perfect Storm inundates a major coastal city like NOLA or Houston again? I'm sure I can come up with an appropriate analogy of ignorance for where you live.
• StavrosK 9y ago
  Wow, what the hell is going on in the comments? A few climate change deniers and someone blaming Hawaiians for living on the island, jeez.
  • elorant 9y ago
    I've noticed that during weekends the quality of comments in HN degrades.
    • digi_owl 9y ago
      Could have sworn that applies to the articles hitting the front page as well...
  • chronotis 9y ago
    Sometimes I feel like there's a bot-army monitoring all channels for new articles invoking the words "climate" or "global warming" and forwarding those pages to a waiting battalion of troll-soldiers.
    • radicalbyte 9y ago
      It's probably true, the oil companies have enough money to pay for the astroturfing.
    • amelius 9y ago
      Fake-news spreading organizations are not limited to just Facebook.
    • dhimes 9y ago
      It actually seems like several armies. It's like certain groups/companies try to control brand image by discouraging criticisms on this board. Sometimes I wonder if disallowing downvotes without a counterpoint would have an effect on that.
      • maxerickson 9y ago
• oldandtired 9y ago
  We can be thankful that these kinds of event happen rarely. The thing I find interesting is the comments by the experts that these kinds of events are supposed to be an indicator of future catastrophe and they do not say that these kinds of events have occurred in the past as well. If we were to see these kinds of events occur more and more frequently (like, every year and a couple of times a year) then we would have evidence that specific changes had occurred in the climate. But to jump the gun and say that this is a harbinger of massive change based on just this occurrence is premature at best and at worst, well, choose your own words.
  • oldandtired 9y ago
    I should add that the last time this kind of event occurred at my parents town, which is in the tropics, was just before a significant years long drought. The local post office's rain gauge maxed out at about 1 metre. This was over a period of either 9 hours or 19 hours.
  • dhimes 9y ago
    If we were to see these kinds of events occur more and more frequently (like, every year and a couple of times a year) then we would have evidence that specific changes had occurred in the climate. The problem is that we don't really know the number is that means "frequently." In the US we had this Hawaii event; we had the Nor'easters[1] in what-10 days?; we had the strongest winter storm on record; we had the catastrophic Texas flooding (because of the Hurricane, but extra). In what-7 months or so? [1] One of those Nor'easters brought enormous damage not because it was so strong, but because there was simultaneously an enormous storm in the ocean-2000 miles across or so, that was going to pound our coast with waves anyway, piling on.
    • oldandtired 9y ago
      Certainly, what number of events over what period of time to be considered frequently is a judgement call and different people and different groups of people will have different criteria to determine this. The problem with records, as they currently exist, is that they are partial at best. It doesn't take much for extent records to be destroyed. As a civilisation, we do not value things like this. As a consequence, when those looking into what has happened in the past, personal recollection is considered extremely unreliable and is often ignored. Some time in the last year, I did a search for extreme weather events that occurred between 1850 and 1910 in Queensland, Australia. The kinds of records that are available are quite sparse. However, a couple of interesting things did arise. 1. The population of that area was quite small during the time period in question. The records come from farms and cattle stations mostly. 2. The recorded values aren't usually used today, though when I was a child and a teen, those values were regularly given during the cyclone season to warn people of the severity of the events. The values were for barometric pressure. I found the recorded values to be so much lower than what was published during the 1960's and 1970's. The inference being that these extreme weather events were spectacularly bigger and more destructive than the events recorded in recent years. The actual destruction to human property and lives was minimal due to the low population density of those times. There are a lot of factors that go into how "destructive" recent events are. If you look at the bigger picture, what we can see is that increasing population density and the subsequent population distribution and the subsequent greed by various factions means that there are more and more people now living in places that a century ago, no one would have lived in because they knew that to do so would be foolish as the weather events would be destructive in those areas. When it boils down to it, people en bulk tend to be less wise and more easily manipulated. If climate scientists and those that support the anthropogenic climate change agenda want to get to be supportive, they need to be less political and less dogmatic and much more open. As I have said elsewhere, if climate scientists can answer specific question in a clear logical manner then they can have the benefit of the doubt. If they don't and they won't then one can quite logically call their utterances as rubbish. I'm still waiting fifteen years after my initial questions and still nary an answer. Your opinion over whether or not anthropogenic causes are responsible for climate change is still, at this time, just an opinion. We do not have sufficient facts or research to determine this, nor do we have sufficient facts or research to determine what mitigation protocols will be effective in the face of climate change. Does climate change exist? Of course it does. We have the obvious evidence before us. But, is it anthropogenic? That we cannot tell at this point. Do humans alter the environment? Yes, we have seen this over a period of a couple of millenia. Does this environmental change have gross effects on climate? We really don't know. We don't know the long term feedback cycles within the planetary system and these feedback cycles are important. Anyone who declares that they know for certain, is just blowing smoke in your eyes. If we cannot stop the dogma and the politics about the subject, we will not even begin to understand the complexity of our planetary system. I have had arguments with scientists and all I can say is that they need a good engineering education to understand the limitations of their theories and models. Many seem to live in a fairy land that ignores reality. Maybe it is just the scientists I have come in contact with.
• soapdog 9y ago
  I've been to Kaua'i multiple times as I contract for a monastery there. It is a very wet place and I remember the first time I've been there and saw houses built on "high stilts", I remember thinking that was a smart solution for flooding on my own home country of Brazil where flooding happens annually. Then, after about 14 years without ever hearing about flooding over there in Kaua'i, this news struck quite close to home. I lost contact with the monastery on that day and then someone there messaged me: "heavy rain, the network is down". I didn't imagine the rain was that heavy... Lucky for them, the monastery is on high ground and wasn't affected as much as shore properties. Can't fathom what those in Hanalei might be handling, heck, I wanted to move to Hanalei for many years. Climate change is something that people in the US should take more seriously, I can't believe the amount of deniers in that country. It is very depressing to watch from afar as people deny science as if it was merely opinions. Kaua'i is one of the most amazing places I've ever been, somewhere I consider a home away from home. Can't believe that government will not take action to course correct their recent snafus related to the Paris accord. They recklessness will make beautiful places such as Kaua'i suffer. noho palekana, my friends.
  • hollander 9y ago
    In Friesland, The Netherlands, farmers used to built a "terp" to keep their home safe from floodings. The first terps were built around 500 BC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terp
• elvirs 9y ago
  not sure if its warming or cooling but climate is definitely getting weirder
  • darkerside 9y ago
    On the one hand, I'm tempted to agree. The whole reason we call it climate change instead of global warming is that, whole temperatures may rise at a global level, that doesn't necessarily manifest as a mean temperature increase in a plurality of locations. But it is theorized to add kinetic energy to the weather system resulting in more powerful weather phenomena. On the other hand, we sure need to be careful in the way we observe trends. The human mind is suited to observe patterns even where they may not exist. Combine that with increasing distribution of news coverage, and the insatiable consumer appetite for bizarre news stories, and it would be surprising if weather didn't seem to be getting weirder over the years.
• mabbo 9y ago
  For those of us in the north, worth considering: an inch of rain is something like a foot of snow, before it gets packed down by further snow. That, for me, puts into perspective just how insane 50 inches of rain is.
• la_fayette 9y ago
  maybe the next phrase of a us president should be: "war on climate change"...
  • tempodox 9y ago
    One might say, there are already several PR departments and politicians engaged in that.