No, in a year Harvey did not drop more water on Houston than flows over Niagara Falls
John Kerry, President Joe Biden’s new special envoy on climate change, appeared on CNN on January 31 to outline the Biden administration’s government approach to climate change.
The cost of taking no action on climate change will far exceed the cost of preventing its worst-case scenario, Kerry argued, pointing to three recent storms – Hurricanes Maria, Harvey and Irma – which damaged the US $ 265 billion in total. cost.
And then Kerry threw out a striking detail: “Harvey dropped more water on Houston in five days than it would in a year over the Niagara Falls,” he said.
It is true that Hurricane Harvey produced rainfall levels that have never been experienced in the United States in history. According to Texas State Climatologist John Nielson-Gammon, the amount of rainfall that fell over 10,000 square miles of Texas and Louisiana over a five-day period exceeded the previous record set in 1899 by 62%.
In Harris County alone, which contains most of the city of Houston, the storm dropped an average of 33.7 inches of rainfall over the province’s 1,777 square miles. But is the amount of rainfall more than the amount of water that flows over the Niagara Falls in a full year? …
Read the full story and see how Kerry’s claim on PolitiFact, listen to the full interview with PolitFact’s Brandon Mulder in the audio player above.