How could the Earth be destroyed by 40 days and 40 nights of rain?
That is not all that happened during the flood. The flood waters apparently did not begin to drain for some 150 days (Genesis 7:24). Another 150 days seems to have passed before the ark landed (Genesis 8:3,4). Ten months of continuous flooding would probably produce major geologic changes in Earth’s surface. In regions away from where the ark landed, the flood might have lasted considerably longer than one year. Water was not the only agent involved in the worldwide catastrophe. The fossil layers contain more than 100 craters formed from impacts of extraterrestrial objects such as asteroids, meteorites and comets.3 Earth’s crust may have undergone a major rearrangement during the flood. No doubt rain played an important part, but there was much more than rain involved in the catastrophe known as the flood. 4. How do we know the flood was worldwide? Couldn’t it have been localized in the Middle East somewhere? Jesus used the Flood as an example of universal judgment (Matthew 24:37-38).