Eight catastrophic floods in 11 days: What's behind intense rainfall around the world?

[OKIsItJustMe]

40. Close to 20 years ago we had a flood

A “climate skeptic” co-worker asked me after that if I was really serious about that “Climate Change” business, and if I thought we would see another flood like that one. He was looking to buy a nice cabin by the river, and the owners told him that it had flooded, but it was a “500 year flood” and it had never flooded before.

I said, “Well, yeah, that was a ‘500 year flood,’ but I read in the paper that the year before that, we had a ‘250 year flood’ and the year before that we had a ‘100 year flood.’ Do you know what the odds against a string like that happening at random are?” He said, “it’s been a while…” I said, “Invert and multiply.” He thought a moment, whistled appreciatively, and said, “That’s a pretty big number!” I said, “Yeah… something’s changing…”

He retired, and bought the cabin anyway. A few years later, I heard from another co-worker that it had flooded in the most recent flood… “Isn’t that terrible‽” he asked, and I agreed, “Sure is!”