Thursday, January 31, 2008

The Rainiest Place In the World

The rainiest place in the world, in terms of the number of rainy days per year, is Mount Wai-'ale'ale on the island of Kauai, Hawaii. They get 350 days of rain annually.

So I guess I shouldn’t be complaining about 11 straight days of rain here in the Bay Area, but in fact, this news actually upsets me a little bit.

Normally at this time of year, I remind myself that at least it isn’t snowing or freezing cold, and that kind of perspective helps. But now I realize that I could be experiencing 11 straight days of warm, Hawaiian rain. But I’m not.

We don’t get Hawaiian rain around here. We get numbing, seeping, soaking, SAD-inducing, turn-your-umbrella-around, no-hope-of-going-for-a-walk San Francisco rain. And I’m over it. The snowpack is above average. The hills are green. (I know because I saw them through a break in the clouds yesterday.) We don’t need any more rain this week. I don’t need any more rain. I need my shoes to dry out. Please, make it stop!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think The rainiest place in the world is Mawsynram, Meghalaya, (India), with an yearly rainfall average of 11872 mm. Alongside it is Cherrapunji, which had earlier this distinction but in recent years Mawnsynram has bagged that distinction.
It is quite remote and a very tiny place and therefore not known, but in fact is has highest annual rainfall average of any other place in the world.
Most people do not even know about it.
I would really appreciate if you could modify the answer.
Thanks!

Nicole said...

Hello, Amod,

Eleven meters is a lot of rain! I was calling Hawaii the rainiest place because it gets more rainy days than anywhere else. But you're absolutely right about Hawaii not getting as much total rainfall as Mawsynram. Kauai "only" gets about 10,000mm. I'll make a note on today's blog.

Thank you for reading!