Umpqua Community College alumnus Donice Smith (L) is embraced after announcing one of her former teachers was shot dead in the Oregon attack.

The massacre at a community college in the US state of Oregon brings the total of mass shootings in the US this year - incidents in which four or more people are killed or injured by gunfire - to 294. There have been only 274 days this year.

The shootings are captured in the calendar below, drawn from the Mass Shooting Tracker.

The tracker draws some criticism because its definition is broader than the FBI's definition, which requires three or more people to be killed by gunfire.

REUTERS Police officers inspect bags as students and staff are evacuated from the Umpqua campus.

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* 13 slain in shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon

* Chilling warning before shooting: 'Don't go to school today'

* Barack Obama: US 'numb' to mass shootings

But the broader definition is nonetheless a useful one, because it captures many high-profile instances of violence - such as the Lafayette theatre shootings - that don't meet the FBI's criteria.

Charleston. Lafayette. Virginia. Now, Roseburg Oregon. But beneath the steady drumbeat of these high-profile cases lie the hundreds of daily mass shootings that most of us never hear about: 11 wounded in a Georgia barroom, six shot outside a Tulsa nightclub, a pregnant mom and grandmother killed in Chicago.

The US has gone no more than eight days without one of these shootings this year.

On six days in September, there were three or more mass shootings. If the initial casualty figures in Oregon are confirmed, that would bring the total of deaths by mass shooting so far this year to 380, with well over 1000 injured.

And, of course, there's the broader universe of nearly10,000 people killed and 20,000 wounded in nearly 40,000 gun violence incidents so far this year.

These numbers tell only the smallest part of the story. And these very numbers will need to be updated again tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that.