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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[–] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 45 points 2 years ago (2 children)

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

Have it your way.

[–] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Fine. Don’t go chasing waterfalls.

[–] MossyFeathers@pawb.social 26 points 2 years 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?

[–] MacNCheezus@lemmy.today 14 points 2 years 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.

[–] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years 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

[–] Gregorech@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago

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

[–] Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 years 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)

[–] HubertManne@kbin.social 19 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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

[–] MacNCheezus@lemmy.today 1 points 2 years 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.

[–] HubertManne@kbin.social 16 points 2 years 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.

[–] MagicPterodactyl@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 years ago

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

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

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

[–] Gregorech@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago

Poor Delaware......

[–] rab@lemmy.ca 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)

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

[–] EnochianFarms@lemmy.world 11 points 2 years 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.

[–] rab@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 years 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

[–] MacNCheezus@lemmy.today 2 points 2 years 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.

[–] golden_calf@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago (3 children)

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

[–] Boris_NotTooBadinoff@lemmy.world 11 points 2 years 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...

[–] MacNCheezus@lemmy.today 5 points 2 years ago

Take it up with Malcolm Tunnell then.

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

[–] Anamnesis@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years 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.

[–] guy@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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

[–] MacNCheezus@lemmy.today 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years 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.

[–] apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] MacNCheezus@lemmy.today 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] i_dont_want_to@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 2 years 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.

[–] MacNCheezus@lemmy.today 1 points 2 years ago

Good point.

[–] FQQD@lemmy.ohaa.xyz 3 points 2 years ago

Poor person responsible for counting this

[–] dan1101@lemm.ee 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Be right back going to visit them all.

[–] Boris_NotTooBadinoff@lemmy.world 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Don't go chasing waterfalls

[–] dan1101@lemm.ee 2 points 2 years ago

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

[–] MacNCheezus@lemmy.today 3 points 2 years ago

See you in a couple of years then

[–] egeres@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

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

[–] tegs_terry@feddit.uk 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] MacNCheezus@lemmy.today 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Almost as if the two are somewhat related...

[–] tegs_terry@feddit.uk 1 points 2 years ago

I think we've cracked it

[–] Hikermick@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

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

[–] RainfallSonata@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Those ranges are so wide as to be pretty useless.

[–] MacNCheezus@lemmy.today 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Maybe that's why there's numbers on each state?

[–] RainfallSonata@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Oh. Assumed those were abbreviated names.

[–] mangaskahn@lemmy.world 11 points 2 years ago

Proud to be from the great state of 3i6nesota. You should come visit and explore our majestic waterfalls.

[–] XeroxCool@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

If could have used a few more colors for in-between ranges but I think as-is, it does a decent job of dividing the country evenly between the two blues in the middle.