How Hard Was it Raining During the Flood? Could the Ark Survive?

This is my first thread so I'm open to any suggestions.I'm interested in the rate of rainfall during the flood. This question will invloves some math and we will have to develop a forumla or two.Specifically, I would like to know how much water it would take to cover the entire earth from current sea level to the peak of Mount Everest. Then if we can take this volume of water and find an average rate of fall per hour over 40 days and 40 nights (960 hours).Everest is 8,848 meters (29,028 feet) tall. (Mount Ararat is 5,137 metres (16,854 ft) at its peak.)The diameter of Earth is 7,926 mi (12,760 km). 29.2% of the Earth is land and the remaining 70.8% is covered with water. The total surface area of the earth is approximately 197,000,000 square miles (509,600,000 square kilometers). I do not know the average elevation of land on earth and this seems important - if we cannot find an average elevation we may have to just assign a number here, such as 100 meters.We will need to find the volume of the earth covered with water, subtract the volume of the Earth without the floodwater, and this will give us the total volume of water rained down during the flood. Then we can divide the total amount of water dropped in the flood by the number of hours that it rained.If we find that the ran fell at a rate close to 9 meters/hour uniformly accross the entire earth, what does this mean? In terms that a layman can understand, was being under rain of the great flood closer to standing under a shower or under niagra falls?Then finally, can a wooden roof survive this type of beating for 40 days and nights?

Hi Chief Infidel,I'm happy to promote this to Geology and the Great Flood as is, if you like, but I should probably point out to you that you're going to encounter objections to your understanding of the Flood, one being that there were no very high mountains like Everest at the time, and another being that all the water didn't come from the rain but from something called "the fountains of the deep." So you might want to review some other threads on the ark first, and maybe rewrite your calculations in the OP.Let me know when you're ready by posting a reply to this.

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Thanks, Geology and Great Flood Sounds Good. I forgot about "the fountains of the deep." If someone can explain these to me I would love to hear it.Perhaps we can run the numbers a couple of times. The first time, which would produce the maximum rate of rainfall, can use Everest and all of the water coming from rain. Then, at the very least, we can use the height of the flood at the top of the grand canyon elevation (8255 ft?). If someone has another reasonable alternative for the height of the highest mountain of the time I would entertain using that number.From there, we can assume lower mountains and some percentage of the floodwaters coming from "the fountains of the deep," and see where that gets us. First I'd like to get a handle on just how much water it would take to flood the earth. Then we can speculate on how much came from rainfall.I'm flexible with the numbers. They are variables and I need the most help with developing a formula. Once the formula is in place we can play with the numbers.Maybe
v1 = volume of earth with floodwaters
v2 = volume of earth without floodwaters
F = Volume of water from the fountains of the deep
R = Volume of water from rainv1 - v2 = F + RFinding v1 and v2 is the hard part for me. The total of F and R divided by 960 hours is going to be the rate at which the water rose for Noah. From there, we can guess at percentages of water from fountains of the deep and rainfall and adjust accordingly. Edited by Chief Infidel, : No reason given.

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

That's what some people claim, without any evidence for that claim. The stories about coninents reeling around the globe like drunken sailors in order to create the topography we see today are amusing but nothing to take seriously. The heat that would be released in the process is incomprehensible.

The point is that the Bible is the only clue to what happened in the Flood and when it says that the waters "prevailed 15 cubits and covered the high mountains" that suggests mountains of considerably less stature than Everest.The subject of this thread is not the heat that tectonics might or might not generate, it's what the rain did.

How is it not adding to scripture to make a claim like this? You cannot get this kind of detail from the text. The text mentions mountains and it mentions 15 cubits of water. If the 15 cubits is from sea level, there would be no mention of mountains because even assuming the "long cubit" of Ezekiel we are talking about 30 feet. No one calls that a "mountain". So the 15 cubits must be over the tallest mountain. Now, where are we told there were no mountains as high as Mt. Everest? On edit: Even a text to the effect of: "The mountains were not as high in those days." would cut it. But I don't see anything like that. Do you? Edited by deerbreh, : No reason given.

I saw the 15 cubits as well.Perhaps Gen 7:20 means that the floodwaters exceeded the tops of the highest mountains at the time by 15 cubits.Either way, I would appreciate it if someone with more math skills than me could create a formula that we can play around with. Let's get that down first.Once the formula is created, we can plug in different variables for mountain heights.

Problem is you can't do the calculation assuming mountains "not as high as Mt. Everest" because we don't know how high that is. It is not 15 cubits because at most that is 30 feet and that is not a mountain in anybody's book.

It HAS to be that. Nothing else makes sense. But that is a problem. If you throw out the Everest number (which there is no scriptural justification for, as I pointed out to Faith), you are left with.....what? Nothing. Can't do the calculations.

Surface area of a sphere X height should approximate it fairly well. Use diameter of the earth. You should be able to Google the surface area of a sphere formula and the diameter of the earth. The earth is slightly flattened at the poles but the figure should be close enough. It is all guesswork anyway if we can't plug in the height of Everest.On edit: I see you have the surface area calculated in the OP. So the rest is simple.Edited by deerbreh, : No reason given.Edited by deerbreh, : No reason given.

I don't see how the verse is saying that the water covered the mountains by 15 cubits but there's no reason not to go ahead and try to calculate how much water that would be if so, and if Everest existed then, and as CI says, plug in other numbers as the thread progresses.

It probably means that the authors of genesis:

1. Had no conception of what "the highest mountains" are.
2. Had no conception of "sea level".

I live 1975 feet above sea level and the highest hills nearby are not much higher. If it flooded 15 cubits deep, it would certainly look like the whole world was flooded. If I didn't have geography books to tell me different, I could be forgiven for describing it that way.(Are you really the chief of all infidels? I've been called an infidel. Does that make you my boss? )

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There has to be a point of reference for the 15 cubits. It can't be sea level because that doesn't make sense. The only thing left is the tops of the mountains. You are avoiding the question of why we don't have to assume Everest existed based on the text. Anyway plugging in anything else "as the thread progresses" is just idle speculation - pretty much useless.

Calculate it for all possibilities. Why not?