Intense rains fall on Santiago: the meteorologist warns that “we are already in the danger zone”

Early in the morning, dusk began to fall. rain with intensity on Santiago . Quickly, various streets and avenues began to flood and even form waterfalls, affecting hundreds of homes in the municipalities of the Metropolitan Region.

But, Why did the area flood so quickly?

The Chilevisión meteorologist, Eduardo Saez explain to The third What The key question is how many millimeters per hour the city is capable of supporting. And the big problem of this morning – and many others front systems that reach the region is the intensity of the rain in a few hours.

When more than 5 millimeters of water per hour is exceeded, problems begin.

And this morning, taking into account the measurements from the Quinta Normal station, In Santiago alone, 7.75 millimeters of water fell per hour, which would explain why some areas are already flooded.

“At 7 millimeters, we are already in the danger zone” warns meteorologist Sáez.

To better explain the topic of millimeters and rain, the expert gives an example as follows: If you have a pot and water it with a sprayer, you can water the plant for a week with the same amount of water.

However, If you pour a two-liter bottle at once, the pot will be flooded.

This is also the case with rain and cities. : Rain of 80 millimeters in several days is not the same as raining the same amount in a few hours. And, in recent front-end systems, the scenario has been this.

“The last rains were very abundant, even if they were short. Very intense. For example, we now have heavy and constant rains, so we are going to have several places where they are going to be flooded,” explains Sáez. LT.

And as the expert explains, The drainage system – in Santiago and other parts of Chile – does not have enough capacity for water to flow easily. “There may also be faulty water pipes that are not cleaned well underground, which we cannot see with the naked eye.”

“The other thing is that today we have a much greater amount of concrete on the ground. If you look at how the city has expanded towards the mountains, that also causes the water in the streets to drop very quickly. This is why the issue of water pipes and their size is important.”

With this scenario, the meteorologist says that “If we have intense rain above 7 millimeters per hour, even if it’s short, like 40 minutes, the city collapses. Already more than 5 or 6 millimeters are worrying for our reality. And even more so if there are many hours.

Sáez predicts that Rain could only start falling around 7:00 p.m. That is to say, there are still several hours of intense rain that can continue to wreak havoc in the city.

“By 10 p.m., the rain was lessening or lessening. » between isolated showers or lighter rain.