SC Clobbered By Once-in-1,000-Years Rain

The southeastern United States is pretty soaked right now, but don't complain to South Carolina, which has taken an eye-popping amount of rain since Saturday and is under a state of emergency. A look around at the wake of Hurricane Joaquin:

• Columbia apparently bore the brunt of the storm, reports the AP, with 11.5 inches recorded at the airport on Saturday alone and up to 14 inches in other parts. Factor in totals since Friday, and some areas had seen upward of two feet of water. The Washington Post notes that the airport's previous wettest day occurred during Tropical Storm Hermine in 1998: 10.52 inches.

• It's being called a once-in-a-1,000-years storm, notes the Post, with the caveat that such a storm would have been a four-day event of 17.5 inches, according to NOAA's scale. Mt. Pleasant had already taken 24 inches by Sunday morning, notes the Post, "which essentially blows NOAA’s 1,000-year events scale out of the water."
• It gets worse: The Post notes that central and eastern South Carolina are expected to get another four to 10 inches of rain. "The peak is past, that's for sure, but there will still be periods of heavy rain that will continue into tonight," a National Weather Service meteorologist tells the AP.

(More South Carolina stories.)