Doyle Rice, USA TODAY
The unrelenting heavy rainfall that soaked the Carolinas in the past week amounted to roughly 11 trillion gallons — enough to end the drought in California.
The rain caused catastrophic flooding in North Carolina and South Carolina, which received 5.2 trillion gallons and 5.8 trillion gallons, respectively, according to data gathered by WeatherBell meteorologist Ryan Maue.
He says 11 trillion gallons would be enough to fill:
- 636 million swimming pools (16 x 32 feet each)
- 130,370 Rose Bowls (filled to the top)
It’s also about one-third the volume of Lake Tahoe.
And, amazingly, it’s the exact amount needed to end the drought in California, according to NASA calculations in December. However, getting all 11 trillion gallons in a few days wouldn’t be the way to get it.
“It takes years to get into a drought of this severity, and it will likely take many more big storms, and years, to crawl out of it,” Jay Famiglietti, a scientist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in December.
So far, the flooding in the Carolinas has killed more than a dozen people and caused over $1 billion in damages.
Now picture every gallon of water being a one dollar bill. Every dollar of debt the Obama administration has racked up since he entered office.
I guess the difference is 52% of American voters did not willingly choose the rain. Yours is a great analogy.
JD, Same thought that I had. What is $11,000,000,000,000. HMMM. If you had a cube of golf balls (stacked not interlaced) and IT had only ONE TRILLION Golf Balls…..how high or what would the sides be? Think Empire State building….to the tip, that is 1454 FT. The sides of the cube would be 1400 FT…. OK, what about something that FB fans can relate to? Take a standard FB Field. Start stacking $100 Bills (NOT ONE’s). You could have to cover the field with them up to 6.92 Ft….about the height of a tall TE. THAT would be ONE Trillion.… Read more »