WEATHER BY THE NUMBERS

* 460 inches is how much rain that Mount Waialeale, Kauai, Hawaii gets in a normal year. Some lists say that the wettest spot on earth is Cherrapunji, India with 450 inches. That location in a saddle of the Himalaya Mountain Range once received over 1,000 inches in one year.

* 0.03 is the normal annual rainfall for Arica in extreme Northern Chile. No contest there for the driest spot. Ironically, Arica is only a few miles from the Pacific Coast, but remember, in the Southern Hemisphere weather systems move east to west instead of west to east like they do in the USA and the Northern Hemisphere.

* 14 years without a drop of rain. That is another astounding statistic from Arica, Chile. It happened once. Strangely enough, a few years ago they had some major flash flooding with numerous roads washed out. Their population is 200,000.

* 9 above zero was the low in Anaktuvuk, Alaska this morning. I believe that is the first time that no station in Alaska reported sub zero since late last autumn.

* 21 inches of snow is expected in the Pikes Peak region of Colorado from a big snowstorm currently underway.

* 310 is how many fatalities there were when 18 tornadoes struck from Louisiana to Georgia on April 24, 1908. 155 were killed in Mississippi including 143 at Hattiesburg.

* 37 was the number of fatalities in Alabama in that major event. About 15 were killed and 150 injured at Albertville when half the town was destroyed. 150 buildings were destroyed in Albertville. A 9-ton oil tank was picked up and carried one-half mile. A 9-car freight train was overturned and the freight cars destroyed. About 12 fatalities occurred at Dora in Eastern Walker County.

* 541 is the population of Protection, Kansas. That is a strange name for a town. They have the honor of being the first town in the USA completely inoculated from polio in earlier years. Why do I mention Protection? A strong tornado was vividly photographed in video there yesterday by storm chaser, George Kourounis. Protection is located in extreme South Kansas on US-160 SW of Coldwater and NW of Buttermilk. Buttermilk, Kansas! That really piques my interest. I would love to have lunch in Buttermilk. That would be as exciting to me as James Spann having lunch at Jim’s Pit BBQ in Billingsley. I had lunch one day many years ago at Pine Knot in East Kentucky. It was the smallest little cafe I had ever seen and I will never forget it.

* 1.00 is our projected rain amount for Central Alabama Thursday. We hope the system does not poop out before it gets here and we don’t believe it will. There was a nice slow rain across teh Tennessee Valley this morning and Decatur Airport received a welcome 0.64.

* 317 was how many people were killed in the second deadliest tornado ever in the USA. It occurred at Nachez, Misssissippi on May 6, 1840. The most deaths was 689 on March 18, 1925 in the tri-state tornado that moved across parts of Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.

* 162 days in a row with the temperature reaching 100 or higher occurred in Marble Bar, West Australia for the longest such hot spell ever recorded in the world. It was 100 or hotter each day from October 30, 1923 to April 7, 1924.

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