Kevin Myatt is The Roanoke Times' weather columnist.

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Thinking about the 27 inches of rain that fell in a few hours in Nelson County during Hurricane Camille 40 years ago, and reports of about 90 inches of rain with Typhoon Morakot in Taiwan on Aug. 8, may make you wonder about the heaviest rains on record.

Because there isn't a rain gauge in every conceivable place, it's quite likely the biggest rainfall tallies are being missed somewhere. But the World Meteorological Organization has some eye-popping rainfall numbers on its books.

The Taiwan storm could set a record if the cited rainfall amounts are confirmed and determined to have occurred within 24 hours. The WMO recognizes a 24-hour rainfall record of 71.8 inches in 1966 on the French island of La Reunion, which is east of Madagascar, the large Indian Ocean island off the southern coast of Africa.

The largest one-minute and one-hour totals for rainfall are from the United States. Unionville, Md., recorded 1.23 inches of rain within a minute on July 4, 1956, while Holt, Mo., measured a foot in an hour on June 22, 1947.

Cherrapunji, India, holds the record for most rain in a year, 1,042 inches, way back in the period from August 1860 to July 1861.

Mount Waialeale on the island of Kauai in Hawaii is sometimes called the rainiest place on Earth, averaging 350 days of rain each year and an average annual rainfall listed between 430 and 520 inches by various sources. Cherrapunji, India, and Tutunendo, Colombia, also are sometimes given that honor with similar average annual rainfall totals cited.

The thing common to each of those three places: steep mountains squeezing out a rich upslope flow of dense tropical moisture.

Be thankful the Appalachians aren't 5,000 feet taller with wet tropical breezes blowing against them every day.

Weather Journal appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.