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Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Bombay underwater 

I lived through one of the worst rains in Bombay sometime in the early 90's (I can't remember the year) and I distinctly remember seeing pictures of cars floating about in the water. I never thought I would ever see worse flooding than that, which is of course exactly what happened on July 26th. Bombay received the highest rainfall ever (37.1 inches) recorded in India, overtaking the 33 inches recorded in Cherrapunji in 1910. To put that in perspective, London receives about 28 inches of rainfall every year. You could also think about in terms of snowfall in the U.S. The rough calculation is that 10 inches of snow (considered pretty bad in the U.S.) will melt to about 1 inch of water. That puts 37.1 inches of rain into perspective, doesn't it?

PS: The 1:10 ratio does not always hold true.