ABSTRACT
This chapter involves rainfall investigations and more generally the problems that can arise in extremes measurements. The author begins the chapter with a brief discussion of rain measurement instrumentation and the citizen-based rainfall recording project called CoCoRaHS. This is followed by a discussion of an investigation into a purported rainfall maximum at Cherrapunji, India. In that investigation, we identified that a decimal point had simply been misplaced. Such an error can be the difference between being a world record or not. The author then discusses the complex concept of a climatic normal and our investigation of Puerto Lopez, Colombia as the location of the highest annually averaged precipitation. However, we reject that claim based on the definitions associated with climatic normals. The chapter is concluded by a short interlude from David Livingston’s 1857 book, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, involving Livingston’s comments on African rain magic.
