UPDATE: The AP has a good article with pictures saying that 14,000 have been rescued and over 100 killed from the worst flooding in the country in 50 years.

UPDATE: Below is an image from the last day of the event (used with permission from the CMB) and an animation from the end of the event is also available here. As far as official climate stations that CWB reports from, the highest by far was Alishan, with the following totals:

1-day: 2327 mm (91.67 inches)3-day: 2747 mm (108.15")4-day: 2965 mm (116.73")

UPDATE: The world record that I quoted below was surpassed in 2007 at 154.6 inches (see Comment below). My apologies for not finding this newer record.

NowPublic.com is reporting that southern Taiwan got 2,900 mm (114.17 inches or about 9.5 feet!) of rain from Typhoon Morakot last week, with 1403 mm (55.23 inches) in one day. We have some more details of the damage the cyclone did in our news story and you can read more on Google News about the $4.22 billion in agricultural losses there and 1,000,000 (1 million) that were evacuated from the China coast before the storm powered inland today.

I got to the maps too late (they only archive 3 days back) so the Taiwan Weather Service (CWB)'s maps show well over 300 mm (11.18 in) in one day, off the chart (see above) and 110 to 130 mm in one hour (see below) (those links may expire soon).

This won't set a world record but it will be close. According to Chris Burt's [JessePedia], "Extreme Weather" , the world record for 3-day rainfall is 127.56" on Reunion Island in 1952. The 55-inch reading would rank as the #8 for the 1-day rainfall worldwide record (#1 is 73.62", same date/location as the 3-day record), or #4 if you take Reunion Island out of the equation, or #2 for Taiwan (#1 is 65.88" at Xinliao in 1967).

Comments (1): DaveH:

Not sure what info you use, but a storm named GAMEDE reportedly set the three day record for rainfall in late February of 2007, displacing the 127.56" you quote with its 154.6" total. Also on Reunion Island, Gamede did the same thing Cyclone Hyacinthe did in 1980 when it set the previous (world) records there - both used the slopes of the area's volcanoes to quickly lift and cool the super-moist tropical air. If not for UPWELLING (bringing cooler deep waters to the surface as it sat stationary), the storm's continuous, (until then) uninteruprted convection would have definitively set more records.

Kinda surprised, Jesse, for you are on your game most often for fact(oids) such as this.

FROM JESSE: Hi Dave, as stated in the blog I am using Chris Burt's "Extreme Weather" book published in 2007, which is why it did not include the record you mentioned. I am using this book because there is no online resource for 3-day rainfall totals HOWEVER if I would have had time to do more research (I was on vacation) I would have seen this correction on Chris's site so I apologize. Thanks for the correction, here is an online PDF referencing the record that you pointed out.

Posted by DaveH | August 11, 2009 9:38 AM

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