‘Astronomical’: How much rain was dumped by Hurricane Helene in the Southeast?

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — The damage done by Hurricane Helene since late last week has been a lot to process for many, including those who are specialists in preparing for these events.

During a Wednesday briefing in Raleigh attended by President Joe Biden, Director of North Carolina Emergency Management William Ray called the precipitation North Carolina saw across three days from Hurricane Helene “extreme and unrelenting.”

New figures from current and former experts with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have put a new perspective on the sheer volume of rain that Helene inflicted.

40 trillion gallons

A staggering number first put out by meteorologist Ryan Maue, a former NOAA chief scientist, was that 40 trillion gallons of rain drenched the Southeast from Hurricane Helene and a run-of-the-mill rainstorm which pre-saturated grounds across the hardest-hit states.

The Associated Press spoke with Ed Clark, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Water Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Clark, who did his own independent calculations, said the 40 trillion gallon figure was “about right and, if anything, conservative.”

How much water is that?

To put this hard-to-imagine amount of water into perspective, this level of unheard-of rainwater could:

• Fill the Dallas Cowboy’s stadium 51,000 times
• Fill Lake Tahoe (once)
• Fill 60 million Olympic-size swimming pools

That much rainfall equates to 619 days of constant water flow over Niagara Falls, which drops roughly 750,000 gallons of water every second .

Rainfall impacts in Raleigh

While Raleigh was fortunate to not experience the magnitude of devastating flooding that the western part of the state saw, Helene still brought record-breaking rain to central North Carolina.

Following the extreme influx of rain from Helene, CBS 17 Storm Team Meteorologist Dave Downey found that during July-September 2024, Raleigh experienced the wettest three-month stretch in recorded history. The record-breaking rainfall in this time frame amounted to 31.05 inches.

Looking at the same three months throughout history, the year that comes in second for most rainfall was 1945 when 28.24 inches of rain was recorded.

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