In an average year, the city of New York receives about 43 inches of rain, Chicago about 33 inches, and Los Angeles less than 12 inches. Could you believe that a place on earth once received more rain than those cities receive in a year, in a single day?
Reunion is an island of 970 square miles in the Indian Ocean, about 400 miles east of Madagascar. This heavily populated island, a territory of France, is quite mountainous, with peaks up to 10,000 feet high.
In March, 1952, it rained on part of Reunion as it has never rained on any other place on earth in modern times. Within 24 hours, a site on Reunion about 4,000 feet above sea level received an amazing total of 73.6 inches of rain!
That’s more rain than many places receive in a year, and more than some sites receive in a decade. The weight of the rainwater that drenched Reunion on that day was equal to more than 8,320 tons per acre!
