Severe weather conditions battered Crete from Friday, October 2nd through the afternoon of Saturday, October 3rd, with powerful rainfall and thunderstorms affecting large parts of the island. Particularly significant amounts of precipitation were recorded in mountainous areas and the northern parts of Crete. Based on measurements from the automatic meteorological station network of the National Observatory of Athens / meteo.gr, one of the highest readings was recorded at Xyloskalo in Chania, where total rainfall reached an extraordinary 420 millimeters.
420mm of rainfall recorded over the two-day Friday–Saturday period
This figure is remarkably high when one considers that every 1 millimeter of rainfall is equivalent to 1 liter of water per square meter of surface area. Likewise, over an area of one acre, 1 millimeter of rain corresponds to approximately 1 ton of water. The 420 millimeters recorded at Xyloskalo therefore translate to 420 liters of water per square meter, or 420 tons of water per acre — a staggering volume by any measure.
The map below shows the geographical distribution of cumulative rainfall totals across the entire island of Crete, based on recordings from the automatic meteorological stations of the National Observatory of Athens / meteo.gr.
