Death Valley smashes rainfall record

The world’s hottest and North America’s driest place just experienced a 1 in 1,000-year event, and not because of the heat.

Death Valley, California, the world record holder for the highest air temperature, broke another record this past weekend, but for rainfall. Sitting near the border of Nevada, Death Valley does receive showers and thunderstorms thanks to the Southwest Monsoon, but on Friday, history was made.

A record 37mm of rain inundated the desert at Furnace Creek Visitors Center in three hours. This smashed the previous August 5th 24-hour rainfall record of 28mm of rainfall from 1936 – 86 years ago.

This amount of rain that fell was almost a year’s worth within the space of just a few hours, as Furnace Creek gets around 49.7mm of rain a year on average. The all-time record for a 24-hour period at Furnace Creek in Death Valley is 37.3mm, set back in April 1988 for Furnace Creek – a narrow miss from Friday’s record.

Flash flooding quickly ensued sending rushing water and debris down the roadways. According to the National Park Service, 1,000 people, residents and visitors were trapped in the park until the flood waters dissipated. Rocks and boulders were included in the water flow.

Widespread damage was reported by the park service and park roads will be closed for some time. This event ended up being a 1 in 1,000-year event, meaning there is a 0.1% chance of this happening during any given year.

Other parts of the US, including Denver, Colorado and St. Louis, Chicago have also dealt with historic flooding in the last two weeks.