The claim: Death Valley justrecently got more rain in 4 days than in previous 1000 years
Death Valley is a hot, dry nationwide park situated in California and Nevada. Some social media users are declaring it got an amazing quantity of rain last month.
“Death Valley has got more rain in the last 4 days than in the last 1,000 years,” checksout an Aug. 31 Facebook post.
The post functions a video proving muddy water quickly streaming throughout a barren, desert-like landscape.
The video was saw 14,000 times in a little more than a week.
But the claim is incorrect. Though Death Valley did set a day-to-day record for rainfall in August, it did not get anywhere near 1,000 years’ worth of rain, according to a meteorologist at the National Weather Service.
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USA TODAY reached out to the Facebook user who shared the claim for remark.
Death Valley set everyday record, however did not gobeyond 1,000 years worth of rain
On August 5, the Death Valley Furnace Creek monitoring station recorded 1.7 inches of rain, Dan Berc, a National Weather Service meteorologist, informed USA TODAY.
This “was the biggest daily rainfall tape-recorded at the website giventhat records haveactually been kept there,” he stated in an e-mail. “This is over three-quarters of the typical annual rains of 2.2 inches.”
So while the storm was extraordinary and triggered substantial damage to the park, it did not dump anywhere near 1,000 years’ worth of rain. Less than a year’s worth really fell.
The storm was explained as a “1,000 year rain occasion” in an Aug. 7 National Park Service press release. But that doesn’t mean Death Valley builtup 1,000 years’ worth of rain, according to Berc.
“A 1000-year rains occasion indicates that there is about a 0.1% possibility of it takingplace in a provided year,” he stated. In other words, the expression refers to the frequency of the occasion, not the quantity of rain that fell.
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While the post declares that the rain occasion lasted 4 days, Berc stated the record rains of Aug. 5 happened over about 7 hours.
Our score: False
Based on our researchstudy, we rate FALSE the claim that Death Valley justrecently got more rain in 4 days than in the previous 1,000 years. The August “1,000 year rain occasion” tape-recorded in the park set a everyday record, however did not discard 1,000 years’ worth of