On Monday, October 5, 2015 at 1:23:05 PM UTC+1, Asha Santon wrote:
I'm sure I just saw the governor of South Carolina say that the state
had received its heaviest rainfall for a thousand years (about 40 cm I
believe).

While that is rather a lot of rain, I wonder how they can possibly know
how much rain fell from October 1015 to date.

Wasn't it more along the lines of a once in 1000 year event, a 'return period' in other words?
However to calculate such a return period from actual rainfall data that cannot span much more than one tenth that timespan must be pushing the statistics to the extreme.....

Col