this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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Mildly Interesting

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This is for strictly mildly interesting material. If it's too interesting, it doesn't belong. If it's not interesting, it doesn't belong.

This is obviously an objective criteria, so the mods are always right. Or maybe mildly right? Ahh.. what do we know?

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I'll stick to the rivers and lakes that I'm used to.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago

Have it your way.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Fine. Don’t go chasing waterfalls.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Hey west coast, quit hogging all the waterfalls! Especially California, y'all don't have water, why are you wasting it on falls?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Hahaha! California actually has lot of pretty tall mountains that get regular annual snowfall so I'm assuming that's responsible for quite a few of them. Also, contrary to popular belief it DOES rain there occasionally (most during January and February), but when it does, it's often heavy enough to cause flash flooding, especially in the desert. I'm wiling to bet most of the waterfalls there are probably seasonal.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Yeah, Northern CA’s climate is closer to Oregon’s and SoCal is more like Mexico. Or at least it’s supposed to be. Last year it dumped pretty hard from Dec to March in the Bay Area.

https://ggweather.com/sf/monthly.html

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Why you bugging California, when Washington state is obviously hoarding them?

[–] Dudewitbow 3 points 9 months ago

the water crisis is largely in chunk, due to the agriculture taking up like 95% of it, as california by far is the largest state in the U.S in terms of crop export and it happens to also be the one producing the most water intensive ones (alfalfa(used as food for cows internationally), several nuts and avocados)

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (1 children)

would be interesting to get waterfalls per area of land so that big states are not overly represented.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I mean, you could just put it all in an Excel table, look up the area of each state, and divide the number of waterfalls by that.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago

yeah and I could have just looked up all the info and not used this but the only reason I gave it some thought was someone thought it was interesting enough to post and presumably receive feedback.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (2 children)

We have waterfalls in Florida? I guess when a sinkhole forms, water does, indeed fall.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

As a St. Pete native I figured it was counting like overflown toilets or something

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

There's a place on the Blackwater River I have marked. So far I've traced 7 waterfalls trekking uphill from the water side. But I can hear more in the distance!

The biggest one is a monstrous 3' high.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

So far I've traced 7 waterfalls trekking uphill from the water side. But I can hear more in the distance!

So, I guess you hear 3, at most, in the distance.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I'll pay the waterfall tax for fewer chuds and legal dope.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The most shocking part of this is Florida not being last.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

https://www.ndtourism.com/blog/north-dakota-has-waterfall

North Dakota is so proud of their waterfall. I'm surprised they dont have more than that.

Delware is at clear size disadvantage.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago

Poor Delaware......

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (3 children)

The West Virginia is definitely wrong. I've personally seen more than 24 waterfalls there.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago

You're correct, by a large margin. WV has 275 according to Wikipedia. Now I'm wondering what qualifier was used, was it drop height, discharge, accessible vs inaccessible...

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

Take it up with Malcolm Tunnell then.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Maybe it’s the definition of natural? Are they created by reservoirs or dams? 

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Alaska should have the most by far, I'm not sure this is an accurate count.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (1 children)

"Both states were not included in the larger dataset. Number of watefalls is likely higher than depicted." in reference to Alaska and Hawaii. It might not have been super visible to some people.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Yeah I didn't see that.

As a geography nerd I don't think we have the capabilities to actually count every single waterfall in Alaska. Alaska is still true wilderness and it is massive

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

That's what I thought as well, but do keep in mind that a pretty large chunk of it is just flat, frozen tundra.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Here in Washington it's hard to imagine waterfalls even being noteworthy. We've got way too many mountains and way too much precipitation. We're lousy with waterfalls. The whole fuckin state is a goddamned waterfall.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I've seen many pretty small waterfalls though, how do you count this‽

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I didn't make this map so I have no idea, but the link from the image has citations for all the data sources.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Neat, thanks for sharing.

For instances like Rhode Island (5) and Florida (4), the map groups them in the same range, even though Florida is far larger than Rhode Island. I wonder how it would change the map to have the scales be determined by density, like waterfalls/km^2.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Good point.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Be right back going to visit them all.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Don't go chasing waterfalls

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

That's right, TLC says not to and they've never steered me wrong.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

See you in a couple of years then

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Poor person responsible for counting this

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Almost as if the two are somewhat related...

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

It's interesting that north dakota just has 2 being so far up north

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Define waterfall. One man's waterfall is another man's riffle

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