Is a continuous rain for 48 days and night possible, scientifically ?

Question

Bible mentions a rain throughout the world for 48 days and nights. Is this technically possible ? You need to have a cold air mass colliding with a humid air mass, cold front, warm front etc., before you can have rain. Even if you have rain through out the world at one time, there is not enough moisture around to rain for 48 days. What do you think ? Only scientific answers please

I am not looking for the answer " If God wants anything is possible"

Answer 1

don`t need the bible........ever been to NAM

Answer 2

It is impossible for it to rain everywhere in the world at the same time for forty seconds let alone forty days and nghts. The circulation of the atmosphere is such that you cannot get thick cloud cover over the entire globe. No cloud, no rain.

If it were possible for it to rain for forty days and nights, where would the rain come from? If there was that much cloud above the ground, no sunlight would reach the surface and there would be no plants. The atmospheric pressure would be extreme and would make life very unpleasant. That is presuming there was life on the planet at all. There certainly could not have been humans.

Moving from global rain to local rain I can think of no meteorological circumstance that would allow continuous rain for forty days and nights anywhere in the world. It might be possible in some tropical areas associated with the monsoon but I doubt it very much. It is certainly not possible in the Middle East.

There is no evidence of a global flood lthough there have been many local floods. Chinese records from the same time as Noah was supposed to have been around make no mention of it. Rock art in Australia which is older than the alleged flood shows no sign of water damage and there is no mention of a global flood in subsequent paintings.

Ice cores in Antarctica go back half a million years or so and the annual deposits can be counted. There is no sign of a flood in the ice.

" I don't think this question could be answered using current weather patterns as a model"

The circulation of the atmosphere which drives current weather patterns is determined by the rotation of the Earth about its axis, the tilt of the axis and the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. Unless any of those has changed in the last few thousand years, for which there is no evidence at all, then the circulation of the atmosphere has not changed in millions of years and we can use current weather patterns to assess the possibility of things like global floods.

Answer 3

It depends on:
location on Earth, season, your definition of "continuous rain", etc.

In Central America, it sometimes happens that tropical storms stall in or near the Gulf of Mexico. The counter-clockwise rotation of the clouds take moisture from the Golf (or Caribbean Sea) and rain on areas of central America, causing floods, landslides, etc.

If the system stalls for a few weeks, then it rains (heavily) for a few weeks, bringing what could be described by the victims, as local floods. The system does not run out of moisture, as long as the Golf of Mexico still has warm water.

The stalling of a tropical storm for a long period is theoretically possible. However, at that latitude, such a stalled system is in what is called an "unstable" state of stability (like a stick being held up by one finger: as long as you keep the finger under the stick's centre of gravity, it stays vertical. As soon as it moves over too far, you cannot recover and the stick falls).

Same for the storm, the probability that something will happen before 48 days have elapsed is very high (something like 99.99...%). But it is never exactly 100% so, yes, it could happen.

PS:
Don't forget that the "whole world" of the Bible was relatively small. Using hints from the Bible, some have set the Flood around the year we call 2400 BC. At the time, the Egyptian civilization was florishing and there are extensive records of their history. No mention of a world-wide Flood in Egypt, so it did not extend all the way there.

However, there is some evidence of localized floods (major ones) around 3000 BC in the region of Sumeria. These floods covered what, to many, was the whole world.

Tablets from the old Assyrian library tell the story of one man who saved his family, himself and some animals using a boat. The tale sounds like it was borrowed from even older tales, going back to Sumerian times. In some versions, the hero is Gilgamesh, king of Erech (Akkadia).

Some think that the flood could have been caused by a mix of rain and tidal wave (tsunami). This could reduce the need for a storm with unlimited access to moisture and seems supported by the words of Genesis 7:11

"...all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." The water came from below AND above.

Answer 4

I don't think this question could be answered using current weather patterns as a model. The Bible states that before the flood, water came up from the ground as a sort of dew, and indicates that it did not rain. Also, it states that "the springs of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the heavens opened wide". Since there was no rain prior, there would be vast amounts of moisture in the air. Also, there was apparently a vast amount of water underground, both conditions that are different from anything that goes on on Earth today. maybe its possible these two factors together could flood the Earth, but there's no way we could get any quantitative data either way.

Also, just a minor note, it was 40 days and nights, not 48.

Answer 5

There is not enough water floating over the planet at this point in time for that to be possible. However, After the primordial earth cooled down enough for water to become liquid it rained non-stop (by one estimate) for about 300 thousand years. Other estimates are longer. This most likely includes a cycle of rapid evaporation as the earth was still quite hot.

Answer 6

Scientifically, anything is POSSIBLE. Whether it is likely is another question. It is extremely unlikely that it would happen. Over the last thousand to ten ten thousand years (depending on whose records you are looking at) there is no record, anywhere, ever, of such rainfall. On the other hand, there is also no record of a tsunami creating as much destruction as it did, a couple of years ago, in Asia. But it still happened, anyway. It is like a lottery ticket. Just because the odds of winning the jackpot are 100 million to one, does not mean that nobody will ever win.

Answer 7

Check out the precipitation levels from end of 1985 to begining of 1987 in Seatle WA. Oh yeah how about a year of no sunshine?