Fernseh-Meteorologen kämpfen um die Wahrheit: Weil sie über die Zusammenhänge von Wetter und Klimakrise aufklären, sehen sie sich immer häufiger Angriffen von Wissenschaftsleugnern ausgesetzt.
Maybe the us national weather service just assumes a volume and doesn’t say it? They kinda have to. If you say it rained x inches of rain in that hour, how do you know in what area? X inches over the whole country? Or per city? Per square inch? They have to measure the rainfall over a certain volume over a certain time. Otherwise you wouldn’t be able to compare it.
You don’t need the area to actually have a clue about the significance of a rain event. In the weather news you’ll find expressions like “20 mm of rain”. 20mm “water table” is the independent from the area as it means the same like 20mm/m² or 20mm/km².
You won’t actually calculate the total amount of water (volume) coming down by multiplying it with the area of the rain event.
Inches or mm are a perfectly fine measurement for the amount of rain. Volume over area mathematically comes out as a unit of length.
It’s a lot more intuitive with snow. If you get five inches of snow over night, there’s no need for an area reference, because everything gets the same five inches of snow, no matter how big the area.
With rain it’s the same, everything gets the same “height” of rain, even though it usually doesn’t stay in place like the snow.
