In a given day if it says there will be 1mm of rain, or 10mm, or 300mm… How much is a lot? What does 1mm feel like? How much is a moderate amount of rain? How much is a heavy rainy day? How much is likely to cause floods in most places?
Please give me the simplified answer like I’m actually 5.
In: Planetary Science
It totally depends. A good 100 mm of rain in one day in a rain forest is a nice rain. 100 mm in a day in a desert can cause flash floods.
In 24 hours:
1mm of rain -> barely noticeable
10mm of rain -> light rain, either a decent short rain shower or a drizzle most of the day
80mm of rain -> heavy rain, probably raining most of the day. flooding possible, especially in areas not used to so much rain.
300mm of rain -> get a boat, major flooding, likely dangerous.
800mm of rain -> roughly the yearly equivalent of rain in many temperate countries. This much in a single day would be massive, catastrophic and deadly flooding pretty much anywhere.
Not sure if this helps, but I measure it in snow… 1 mm of rain is (roughly) 1 cm of snow, and 20 cm of snow in a day is lots of snow – which means that 20 mm of rain in a day is lots of rain.
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