RALEIGH, N.C. _ Weather experts normally talk of rainfall predictions in terms of inches, but the effects Hurricane Florence had on North Carolina called for a different unit of measurement.
Prior to the storm's arrival, Weather.us meteorologist Ryan Maue crunched some numbers and tweeted that North Carolina's 7-day rainfall forecast by the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center would be like getting "a total of over 10 trillion gallons" of rain from Florence. The math was based on the projected state average of 10.1 inches of rainfall for that time span.
On Tuesday, after the skies cleared over North Carolina, the National Weather Service's Raleigh forecast office tweeted an image of radar-estimated total rainfall, saying, "Florence dropped about 8.04 TRILLION gallons of rain on NC."
The image showed the most severe rainfall totals in the southeastern portion of the state, listing Wilmington in the 30-50-inch range and Morehead City at 20-30 inches.
