The rain that changed history?

The Hilo rain scared off Sarah Palin. As documented in the book Sarah, she – along with three of her friends – thought it would be a fabulous thing to go to college in Hawaii. They clearly did very little research about Hilo, expecting both warmth and sunshine. According to one member of the quartet, Tilly Ketchum, it rained for three weeks straight when they arrived (towards the end of August of 1982). "Once we got there, we hated it," she recalled. Sarah said of the experience: “"Rain was coming sideways, and I wondered what the heck I was doing out there.”

To get away from the rain, Palin and her friends quickly transferred to Hawaii Pacific University on Oahu. While it rained less there, they happened to go to college in the second rainiest year since records had been kept. (It is now the third rainiest year as 1994 took the lead.) So, ultimately, she decided she preferred cold to rain.

But, could it have been different if she happened to go a different year?

Here is a chart showing the amount of rain greeting our ignorant Sarah and her buddies. (School started on August 23rd. Therefore, I checked the records beginning on August 22 at this wonderful site. Click on the chart if the writing is too small for you to read. Remember, dear foreign readers, that 1 inch=2.5 cm)The first 10 days, the hapless foursome were pelted with 15" of rain. By contrast, we have been in Hilo for three months and have only received 14.74" of rain the entire time! What a contrast.

Hilo is exactly the “small town with good American values” kind of place Palin claims to treasure. (And, having spent time in both Wasilla and here - trust me, Hilo beats Wasilla for charm.) If she had the spectacularly good weather we have had, instead of the rotten weather she endured, don't you think that history might have been different?