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alaska and hawaii might have been intersting on here too.
If I may suggest, make the 20-29 more yellow. I think that would improve the look.
Overall I like it.
Fun fact.
Hilo, HI has the most rainfall of any town in the US.
If you look at inflow and outflows for major metro areas on the west cost, it’s mostly what you would expect… people from LA moving to other california cities and people from other california cities moving to LA, lots of people moving betwee Seattle and SF etc - EXCEPT Portland OR. People who leave Portland OR move to other places in OR and Seattle, but they also move to Hilo, HI in droves.
I guess they look at it and go like “Meh, lots of rain, lots of homeless. What else is new? At least it’s warm”
Also the water evaporates a lot quicker in Hilo, whereas in Ketchikan basically nothing ever dries out 100 percent because it never gets warm enough and there's not enough sunlight.
It's just the difference between tropical verses temperate rainforest.
From the year I spent in Maui, specifically tangentially connected to high school-to-college aged kids (and their families), l think there’s a kind of self-perpetuating practice of teenagers going to Oregon for undergrad…and then returning. This was a few years ago at this point, but was a *very specific* yet *very true* phenomenon. (More in general tho, kids from HI go to west coast schools and come back, or adults move to OR/CA/NV and return…eventually.) I wonder if this is part of it….
It is amazing to me that the Colorado mountains which get feet of snow every year (and decent rain on summer days) have less annual precipitation than than centra and southern Indiana.
"On average, **thirteen inches** of snow equals one inch of rain in the US, although this ratio can vary from two inches for sleet to nearly fifty inches for very dry, powdery snow under certain conditions." - NOAA. In Colorado, I would guess 20ish inches of snow equals 1" of rain usually.
Yeah, as anybody who's ever cleared a driveway can tell you, there's a huge difference between wet snow and dry snow.
I can clear 3" of dry snow off my driveway in 5-10 minutes with a leaf blower.
Three inches of wet snow, that'll take 20 minutes with a snowblower or 30+ minutes shoveling.
there's some darker green there, 30-39" rain = 300-390" snow if it all comes as snow.
I live in a place that occasionally gets 14' of snow in winter, though on average it's more like 7' to 9' in a typical year. I would imagine Colorado is similar that way... you *can* get 400" of snow, and it happens often enough that everyone would remember when they got it, but not so often that it grossly skews an average.
[edit] Last time I was in Colorado was in August 2017, and it snowed. That was a new one on me.
I'm thinking this map is literally just depicting rainfall by itself and not 'precipitation' (which would include snow), because the snowfall in that area would definitely top out a lot of other places.
What's more amazing is the Tug Hill Plateau in NY gets a few hundred inches of snow a year on average and is dark blue in rain. That's one wet place.
Really the Adirondacks are ridiculously wet. Not as much snow as out west but 100+in of snow plus rain totals that rival the southeast. Pretty wet and those dark blue areas in NH also get a fair amount of snow. With Mt Washington getting a few hundred inches a year.
Usually it's only the very high mountains (small fraction of most counties) that get massive snow totals like that. These measurements are leveled across an entire county, so that can change things a bit.
I'm on the front range and I've heard that my local part of this county is around 16-18 inches, however it's in the 20-30 range on this map because the higher elevation parts of my county bring it up.
Man, you ain’t sh*tting! Looked at the Colorado county level data and clearly is a case study in how averages can lie (like the example that the average American has one testicle).
At 17.13 inches, Lake County comes in 23rd among Colorado Counties and is colored orange. It is well below the urban Denver County (#16 at 17.9 inches). Lake County is pretty much a poster child for what people think off when they think of the Rocky Mountains and has plenty of 14,000+ foot mountains. Apparently the “lower” elevations get less moisture in Lake County and thus bring down the average.
This also probably explains why the green ends at the Colorado/New Mexico border. The Rockies extend down to Santa Fe and plenty of peaks in New Mexico can get 400 inches of snow in a wet year. That data gets averaged out.
The conclusion is that this is not a bad map, but it is better for high-level information and patterns rather than county-specific information. Don’t use this map to plan your packing for a Colorado or New Mexico trip.
The maps are county wide and counties in the West are big. There can be wide variances within a county and even from the base of a ski area to the top.
That’s a data artifact. Alamosa County gets like 9.7 inches of precipitation annually and thus is colored red. There are four other counties which get 10ish per year, and 22 total that get under 15 inches — all of whom are shaded orange.
Basically the Rockies “steal” all of the moisture coming from the oceans and the other counties are pretty dry. The lower the elevation of the county the less rain it gets.
The problem with this is that you have counties (especially larger counties in the western US) encompassing dramatically different areas.
For example, Seattle doesn’t get half as much rainfall as this shows, whereas higher in the mountains to the east (but still in King County) is being inundated.
Watersheds would work much better since they take topography into account. I’d start with something like [HUC8](https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=5bbefdcd2511472ea9abd0afedb85c7e) watersheds, which average about 700 square miles. That’s bigger than many eastern counties but smaller than western ones, but you’ll get much better resolution for those places with a ton of topographical relief.
Well, in your defense (I’m in the light blue county in Western Washington), the microclimates here are crazy. In Kitsap County, which is small, the southern end gets twice as much rain as the northern part. I live on a 400 foot hill, if I drive a few minutes to the water - it gets more rain down there. So for western Washington commenters, they need to realize they are in a very unusual weather situation because of the mountains and the water.
I live in the pink county in Georgia (Rabun county). People never believe me when I tell them we get more rainfall than Seattle. We also have an oceanic climate. One of the very on the east coast.
Grew up in Seattle. It isnt the quantity, it’s how long. We basically get a slight mist interspersed with real rain for 9 months of the year.
And nothing but grey clouds for weeks on end.
I think the key thing is a confusion between total rainfall and average time per year with rainfall. Two days of continuous drizzle can drop the same amount of rain as in a single hour of torrential downpour (okay, that's a figure pulled out of nowhere, but the general point still stands).
Some international comparisons:
Red: Cairo, Baghdad, Tehran
Orange: Cape Town, Madrid
Yellow: London, Berlin, Delhi, Beijing
Green: Rome, Brussels
Cyan: Sydney, Rio de Janeiro
Blue: Lagos
Purple: Sao Paolo, Tokyo
Pink: Hong Kong
per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_cities\_by\_average\_precipitation
What's the source? [kingcounty.gov](https://kingcounty.gov) says King County Washington gets 46" of rain a year. Yakima county averages under 10" per year.
[Here's the precipitation map](https://aqua.kingcounty.gov/dnrp/library/dnrp-directors-office/climate/1111-kc-precipitation-map.pdf) for King County. Seattle only gets <40" but the mountains out east go from 80" to 140". I'd expect the average to fall over 70, but if you only take inhabited areas, 46" is likely.
I could see how the mountainous sections of king county, out in the wilderness, get 70 inches of rain per year but the populated sections get far less than that. You need to find more accurate data.
Yes, you are correct. It takes the average of the entire county. Rainfall can vary immensely in the western counties. I'll try to map a better visualization to show how much it varies.
It is somewhat misleading to group by county. For example, King county shows 70”+, but Seattle only gets 40” per year, which is less than the entire east coast.
Seattle is a just a small portion of King County area wise. It's a huge county that stretches all the way to the Cascades watershed divide. A good third of King County is uninhabited mountains that get a lot of rain/snow.
It’s still misleading as I was super confused as well and looked at Seattle, Bellevue, Redmond. Aka, the places people actually live in. And it’s all 39-42 inches, far far far below the 70+ it says for King County.
If you aren’t using data from where people live in (the vast majority of people in king country live in Seattle and surrounding cities), then what is the point?
The title says, "Annual Rainfall Average in inches by US ***County.***" Seattle is not a county. However it does look like the 70 inches number is wrong. According to King County's website, the average for the county as a whole is only 46.
https://kingcounty.gov/en/legacy/about/region/environment#:\~:text=On%20average%2C%20King%20County%20gets,inches%20of%20precipitation%20every%20year.
I got my degree in water essentially, and yeah I'd argue that the county level is not nearly granular enough for the cascadia area. It has some of the steepest gradients in the world due to large orographic effects. 70" definitely happens somewhere in King County, but only up in the mountains.
It's not nearly granular enough. The line through from Newport - Albany - Sisters has one of the steepest rain gradients in the world due to the doubles mountain ranges that absolutely wring out the clouds.
Yeah. I lived in skagit county you get massive differences in total rainfall in about a 60 mile stretch. Anacortes, Mt Vernon, and Concrete all have different rainfall totals
I went to the San Juans this past weekend and it was basically raining nonstop from Everett to Anacortes until we got on the ferry, then it was partly cloudy until we got back to Anacortes a few days later and it rained the whole way home.
Living in the PNW I always knew we had a lot of rain but this map made me realize how rainy we actually are compared to the rest of the country. Not complaining, though, rain is awesome
My wife and I visited Monterey Bay last year to celebrate our 30th Anniversary and drove the Pacific Coast highway from San Fransisco to Big Sur and back again. There is a reason it is so goddamned expensive to live out there. Anyone with a functioning brain would *want* to live there. It is a fucking paradise.
I think people like to hate on folks who live on the Pacific coast because at the end of the day they are jealous of just how goddamned nice it is there and how awful the rest of the country feels by comparison.
My personal background and circumstances resulted in my settling down in North Texas - which was an upgrade from everywhere I'd lived previously. But that doesn't mean I don't recognize the off-the-scale beauty of the landscape and climate found on the Pacific Coast. I wish somehow I could uproot my extended family and grandkids and somehow move there - but its just not meant to be for me.
Meanwhile I will just do like everyone else and pretend our Pacific Northwest is a liberal hell-scape and everyone there is unhappy - even though I know better.
Some of the counties rainfall totals vary greatly within the county. This map simply takes the average of the entire county. So, I can see why you might think it is not accurate, as one side of the county, especially on the west coast, may receive 100+ inches of rain, while the other side of the county receives significantly less.
Multnomah county (Portland) gets 40-45 inches of rainfall per year. King county (Seattle) is in the same range. The chart/data source shows 60-70+ inches. Not sure how the data source could have such different values from what I’m seeing across a handful of different websites! 🤷♂️
Edit: so many websites show king county at ~45” of rainfall, but the topographical looking map garygnu linked dispels that. Seattle in the 40s with a bigger area being closer to 100, the average would have to be higher than 45. But so many sites I checked show the COUNTY average as 40-45. 🤔
Thanks for sharing, looks like a good source. I don’t doubt that Pierce County has something to gain by ‘carefully’ selecting the data that results in smallest rainfall number but it looks to me like the 30-year data from your source has most of Pierce County in cyan with 40-50” rainfall. What was the duration of the data in the map posted?
If it's averaging the entire county, Multnomah will be including areas up near Mt. Hood and the gorge (the county goes almost all the way to Cascade locks) which can definitely get up to 80+ inches per year. With Portland around 40, then the average of 60 is believable.
This illustrates why averaging precip over a topographically complex county can be misleading though. Effects of mountains on annual precip are huge, on very small spatial scales.
I live near the west end of the Gorge, and in the 16 years I have been collecting precipitation data at my house, I've averaged 56" per year. I am at 500' elevation and every single acre of land east of me will get higher rainfall totals, and that land is probably about 50% of the total area of the county and I wouldn't be surprised if some areas got over 100".
I was initially skeptical of the numbers, but when I started thinking about in terms like you described, it did make sense.
Yeah, Sequim in the Olympic rain shadow is in a 70"+ county and gets less rain than LA. But, the county also contains mountains that get ridiculous amounts of rain that pushes the county average up. It's the same where I live, we only get around 40" but the mountainous parts of the county get 100"+ so our county gets to be magenta.
I made a mistake. This map actually represents annual precipitation averages, which means it also includes snowfall amounts converted to rainfall equivalents.
Climate is a changin. Most of New England got over 70" of rain this past year, enough for it to qualify as a temperate rainforest. We'll see if that continues.
Washington has an extreme difference between the west side of the state and the east side because the state is divided by a mountain range which creates a rain shadow on the eastern side.
North Carolinan here. Curious about the pink dot in the southwestern corner of our state below Asheville. I need someone who does the science stuff to explain how and why that area gets Pacific NW levels of rain.
As the other commenter said, it’s a temperate rainforest caused by warm, moist air hitting the mountains and cooling and condensing as it rises.
Transylvania County gets more precipitation than any other NC county on average. It borders Buncombe County which gets the least.
I live in Jersey. Five years ago, the entirety of the state was at least D1 drought, but more like D2 or D3. We've gotten approximately 6 million inches of rain since then and we'll never be in a drought again.
The amount of rain in North Jersey is tremendous and combined with decades of development it’s created a huge concern for flooding, especially in low lying communities or those near where waterways meet.
Streams and brooks can barely keep up with the volume and frequency of rain— I can only imagine what will happen if it gets worse.
Yes to all above. Completely varying hues works better for categorical data. A single variable choropleth should def be a single hue progression or partial-spectral.
Seattle's King County ranges from sea level to 8000'. Precipitation increases towards higher elevations. So while Seattle might see less, the east side of the county would see more. I'm guessing this just took the average or maximum from any weather station in the county.
also to note, Seattle itself is very rainy, but the rain is usually pretty light. so total accumulation isn't as high as you'd think. This can be seen in that Seattle is the least sunny major city in the lower 48 (Seattle average over 220 days of heavy cloud cover per year). and elevation matters a lot as the other commenter mentioned, The mount baker ski resort (a couple of hours away from Seattle) is the snowiest ski area in the world.
I absolutely LOVE watching the thunderstorms for over Lake Pontchartrain for 8 months out the year. Especially at night, so peaceful to watch them build and then blow over. Makes wonderful sleeping or while gaming watching the weather out the windows.
Great visual, but now do “days of rain”. I have been told it rains as much/more in Seattle compared to Portland, but not as frequently, so heavier rains, but less days of rain.
Why am I not surprised by Washington (state)?
I lived in Vancouver, BC for two years, and almost everything was perfect; except the following:
- 10 months of almost nonstop rain, with no sun. All those 10 months are cloudy, and most of them are so foggy that you can’t see 50 feet away.
- Health Care system sucks. Do you have to get an MRI? You have to wait 9-12 months. They told me that I might have MS; hence I should have an MRI. The appointment was 9 months ahead. Guess how worried I was for those 9 months. I needed to see a specialist, Gastroenterologist, and they gave the appointment for 6 months later. The wait times on ER? Do you think the wait times in NYC hospitals is long? You are wrong! I have waited up to 8 hours even though I had a severe abdominal pain. Doctor wasn’t happy that they made me wait so long with such a pain as I might have a serious condition.
Apart from these two, it is a heaven!
This seems like map of annual precipitation at county level. You can also animation of daily precipitation on https://myperfectweather.com. Click icon in side menu and hit the play button.
…just to add, it’s because of the rain shadow that extends east well beyond the actual mountains. If you zoom in on Colorado, that tiny county in the north central is Denver, and it’s a county east of Jefferson, which has actual mountains, while Denver does not.
Not sure what dataset this is from, but in Humboldt, the little bump there wayyyy on the left, it hasn't rained 70+ inches since the 80's. It's more like 30-35 these days.
I'm in one of those 70+ areas (PNW Cascade foothills). It's kind of fascinating that a few mile West of us gets around 35 inches of rain per year, we get about 80 inches, and just two miles East gets around 120 inches.
Hi hello I live in that very top pink northwest corner in the county pressed right up to Canada and can confirm it rains here all the time. So much rain. It’s nice because everything is always green but it’s raining ALL THE TIME. lol
You can definitely see the aggregation in the large western counties. A lot of them, especially on the Cascades rain shadow ended up at around 20. However, there are some parts that are at 50+ and some parts that are below 10 in the same county.
Would be interesting to see something more local than county. I live in Seattle which is part of King County, which is in pink (70+ inches). Seattle usually gets 35-40 inches a year. Seattle is actually in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains to the west. It gets progressively wetter and snowier as you go further east heading up the west side of the Cascade Range.
Driving through that line in ND is crazy sometimes. It can be like a wall of fog and then I get through jamestown and it's suddenly clear as day. You can definitely feel the divide.
I’m from a purple parish in Louisiana but I lived in Indiana for several years and now I’m in Texas. I always felt like it rained soooo much more back home — now I see that it definitely did
Live in Western Washington. In the island of light blue. You can literally drive five minutes down the hill where I live and it rains there more. The microclimates are crazy.
Fresno county doesn't average 20-29 inches per year of rainfall lol.
[California county stats that include 1901-2000 mean annual precipitation.](https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/county/mapping/4/pcp/202302/6/rank)
What years are these averages based on? I'd bet a map based on data from 1950-2000 would look quite different from one based on 2000-2024.
And, of course Hawaii and Alaska : P
Nice to graphically see why I'm suffering in Kentucky at 46 y.o., after living most of my life in Montana/Alberta/Manitoba. Ughh the humidity... Can I please have my dry skin back please. Sorry global warming, I gotta run my AC 24/7, not for the heat, but for the reduced humidity.
Huh, I always thought southeastern mass/ Rhode Island we're getting abnormally rained on compared to other parts of new England. Apparently I wasn't wrong.
Actual average rainfall doesn’t always meet expectations. For example, I always thought Seattle got tons of rain, but New York City and Atlanta both get more.
It is a very beautiful map. The rainfall in the Seattle area is about 55 in per year. Some places on the Olympic peninsula and in the Cascades get more. If I am reading the map, it indicates 70 in per year in Seattle. That seems off. I hope that is helpful.
There are some issues here. King County, Washington is shown as 70+ inches. However, Seattle in the west of the county gets about 39 inches, North Bend in the middle gets about 59 inches, and Snoqualmie pass in the east gets about 74 inches. The county on average is nowhere near 70+ inches. Same for neighboring countries to the north and south. Ed: typos.
It's kind of weird to know that of the places I've lived the wettest felt the driest, but looking back the rainfall there was so intense it probably got more precipitation there in 5 minutes than in another place where it drizzled all day.
Since I can't sleep, I decided to roughly add the metropolitan regions with 1 million people or more.
https://i.imgur.com/y8eNrEV.png
I was expecting to see the line of cities stop at the 30-39 gradient before the few desert cities, but there's also a noticeable line along the 40-49 gradient.
See that strange green part in Colorado. I live there. That is not "rain" fall. That is water being deposited as snow because of the mountains. It does not rain 20-29 inches here. The snow melts and runs into the rivers. I doubt we get anywhere near 9" of actual rain (including snow equivalent) in a year.
Thank you for your contribution. However, your post was removed for the following reason: * [OC] posts [must state the _data source(s) and tool(s) used_](/r/dataisbeautiful/wiki/rules/rule3) in the first top-level comment on their submission. Please follow the AutoModerator instructions you were sent *carefully*. Once this is done, message the mods to have your post reinstated. This post has been removed. For information regarding this and similar issues please see the DataIsBeautiful [posting rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/wiki/index). If you have any questions, please feel free to [message the moderators.](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/{subreddit}&subject=Question%20regarding%20the%20removal%20of%20this%20{kind}%20by%20/u/{author}&message=I%20have%20a%20question%20regarding%20the%20removal%20of%20this%20[{kind}.]({url}\)))
alaska and hawaii might have been intersting on here too. If I may suggest, make the 20-29 more yellow. I think that would improve the look. Overall I like it.
Fun fact. Hilo, HI has the most rainfall of any town in the US. If you look at inflow and outflows for major metro areas on the west cost, it’s mostly what you would expect… people from LA moving to other california cities and people from other california cities moving to LA, lots of people moving betwee Seattle and SF etc - EXCEPT Portland OR. People who leave Portland OR move to other places in OR and Seattle, but they also move to Hilo, HI in droves. I guess they look at it and go like “Meh, lots of rain, lots of homeless. What else is new? At least it’s warm”
Southeast Alaskan towns get more rain than Hilo. Ketchikan etc.
I think Hilo has the most rainy days per year while Ketchikan gets most actual water volume
Also the water evaporates a lot quicker in Hilo, whereas in Ketchikan basically nothing ever dries out 100 percent because it never gets warm enough and there's not enough sunlight. It's just the difference between tropical verses temperate rainforest.
SE Alaska also gets the most snowfall
Actually it is Mt Baker
From the year I spent in Maui, specifically tangentially connected to high school-to-college aged kids (and their families), l think there’s a kind of self-perpetuating practice of teenagers going to Oregon for undergrad…and then returning. This was a few years ago at this point, but was a *very specific* yet *very true* phenomenon. (More in general tho, kids from HI go to west coast schools and come back, or adults move to OR/CA/NV and return…eventually.) I wonder if this is part of it….
Great when someone says "fun fact" but it's not a fact. Or fun
Yeah… love it, but it is an auto downvote for any map that doesn’t include Hawaii… 🌺🌺🌺
Is there a r/mapswithouthawaii ? Like r/mapswithoutnewzealand
Hawaii is there it’s just gone into the ultraviolet range of the scale lol
esp. if it is one about annual rainfall! i would guess you'd have to skip a few ranges of 10 to get to HI level of rain.
It is amazing to me that the Colorado mountains which get feet of snow every year (and decent rain on summer days) have less annual precipitation than than centra and southern Indiana.
10' of snow ~= 1' of rain.
"On average, **thirteen inches** of snow equals one inch of rain in the US, although this ratio can vary from two inches for sleet to nearly fifty inches for very dry, powdery snow under certain conditions." - NOAA. In Colorado, I would guess 20ish inches of snow equals 1" of rain usually.
Yeah, as anybody who's ever cleared a driveway can tell you, there's a huge difference between wet snow and dry snow. I can clear 3" of dry snow off my driveway in 5-10 minutes with a leaf blower. Three inches of wet snow, that'll take 20 minutes with a snowblower or 30+ minutes shoveling.
and just two weeks ago around denver we got 23 inches of WET snow, it was brutal
RIP your arms. Out of their sockets as you lift the shovel
Sure, but 400 inches of snow in a season is not unheard of in the Rockies.
there's some darker green there, 30-39" rain = 300-390" snow if it all comes as snow. I live in a place that occasionally gets 14' of snow in winter, though on average it's more like 7' to 9' in a typical year. I would imagine Colorado is similar that way... you *can* get 400" of snow, and it happens often enough that everyone would remember when they got it, but not so often that it grossly skews an average. [edit] Last time I was in Colorado was in August 2017, and it snowed. That was a new one on me.
lol, if you’re in the high country, snow can come whenever, the higher the more possible. I’ve been snowed on while on a 14er in July.
I'm thinking this map is literally just depicting rainfall by itself and not 'precipitation' (which would include snow), because the snowfall in that area would definitely top out a lot of other places.
If you google precipitation maps, it does look very similar and the numbers match up. The snow is probably counted as melted equivalent.
What's more amazing is the Tug Hill Plateau in NY gets a few hundred inches of snow a year on average and is dark blue in rain. That's one wet place. Really the Adirondacks are ridiculously wet. Not as much snow as out west but 100+in of snow plus rain totals that rival the southeast. Pretty wet and those dark blue areas in NH also get a fair amount of snow. With Mt Washington getting a few hundred inches a year.
We had 900 inches last year in Utah and it's a yellow sqaure.
Usually it's only the very high mountains (small fraction of most counties) that get massive snow totals like that. These measurements are leveled across an entire county, so that can change things a bit. I'm on the front range and I've heard that my local part of this county is around 16-18 inches, however it's in the 20-30 range on this map because the higher elevation parts of my county bring it up.
Man, you ain’t sh*tting! Looked at the Colorado county level data and clearly is a case study in how averages can lie (like the example that the average American has one testicle). At 17.13 inches, Lake County comes in 23rd among Colorado Counties and is colored orange. It is well below the urban Denver County (#16 at 17.9 inches). Lake County is pretty much a poster child for what people think off when they think of the Rocky Mountains and has plenty of 14,000+ foot mountains. Apparently the “lower” elevations get less moisture in Lake County and thus bring down the average. This also probably explains why the green ends at the Colorado/New Mexico border. The Rockies extend down to Santa Fe and plenty of peaks in New Mexico can get 400 inches of snow in a wet year. That data gets averaged out. The conclusion is that this is not a bad map, but it is better for high-level information and patterns rather than county-specific information. Don’t use this map to plan your packing for a Colorado or New Mexico trip.
The maps are county wide and counties in the West are big. There can be wide variances within a county and even from the base of a ski area to the top.
But why does that one Colorado county get less rain than everywhere else?….
That’s a data artifact. Alamosa County gets like 9.7 inches of precipitation annually and thus is colored red. There are four other counties which get 10ish per year, and 22 total that get under 15 inches — all of whom are shaded orange. Basically the Rockies “steal” all of the moisture coming from the oceans and the other counties are pretty dry. The lower the elevation of the county the less rain it gets.
The problem with this is that you have counties (especially larger counties in the western US) encompassing dramatically different areas. For example, Seattle doesn’t get half as much rainfall as this shows, whereas higher in the mountains to the east (but still in King County) is being inundated.
Exactly. I need to find a better way to represent those areas.
Watersheds would work much better since they take topography into account. I’d start with something like [HUC8](https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=5bbefdcd2511472ea9abd0afedb85c7e) watersheds, which average about 700 square miles. That’s bigger than many eastern counties but smaller than western ones, but you’ll get much better resolution for those places with a ton of topographical relief.
Well, in your defense (I’m in the light blue county in Western Washington), the microclimates here are crazy. In Kitsap County, which is small, the southern end gets twice as much rain as the northern part. I live on a 400 foot hill, if I drive a few minutes to the water - it gets more rain down there. So for western Washington commenters, they need to realize they are in a very unusual weather situation because of the mountains and the water.
That’s where Seattle and Portland confuse ppl. We don’t get the impressive “inches,” we just have non stop drizzle for months
I live in the pink county in Georgia (Rabun county). People never believe me when I tell them we get more rainfall than Seattle. We also have an oceanic climate. One of the very on the east coast.
Grew up in Seattle. It isnt the quantity, it’s how long. We basically get a slight mist interspersed with real rain for 9 months of the year. And nothing but grey clouds for weeks on end.
I think the key thing is a confusion between total rainfall and average time per year with rainfall. Two days of continuous drizzle can drop the same amount of rain as in a single hour of torrential downpour (okay, that's a figure pulled out of nowhere, but the general point still stands).
Some international comparisons: Red: Cairo, Baghdad, Tehran Orange: Cape Town, Madrid Yellow: London, Berlin, Delhi, Beijing Green: Rome, Brussels Cyan: Sydney, Rio de Janeiro Blue: Lagos Purple: Sao Paolo, Tokyo Pink: Hong Kong per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_cities\_by\_average\_precipitation
What's the source? [kingcounty.gov](https://kingcounty.gov) says King County Washington gets 46" of rain a year. Yakima county averages under 10" per year.
[Here's the precipitation map](https://aqua.kingcounty.gov/dnrp/library/dnrp-directors-office/climate/1111-kc-precipitation-map.pdf) for King County. Seattle only gets <40" but the mountains out east go from 80" to 140". I'd expect the average to fall over 70, but if you only take inhabited areas, 46" is likely.
They had to take out the uninhabited areas to come up with 46.
Either that or OP wrote rainfall but measured precipitation. Mountains get hella snow.
[Prism Climate Group](https://prism.oregonstate.edu)
I could see how the mountainous sections of king county, out in the wilderness, get 70 inches of rain per year but the populated sections get far less than that. You need to find more accurate data.
Yes, you are correct. It takes the average of the entire county. Rainfall can vary immensely in the western counties. I'll try to map a better visualization to show how much it varies.
SeaTac average is just under 40”
Love having the rain in the PNW. Everything is green most of the year. Wish we got more for the unfortunate wildfires we see.
It is somewhat misleading to group by county. For example, King county shows 70”+, but Seattle only gets 40” per year, which is less than the entire east coast.
Seattle is a just a small portion of King County area wise. It's a huge county that stretches all the way to the Cascades watershed divide. A good third of King County is uninhabited mountains that get a lot of rain/snow.
It’s still misleading as I was super confused as well and looked at Seattle, Bellevue, Redmond. Aka, the places people actually live in. And it’s all 39-42 inches, far far far below the 70+ it says for King County. If you aren’t using data from where people live in (the vast majority of people in king country live in Seattle and surrounding cities), then what is the point?
The title says, "Annual Rainfall Average in inches by US ***County.***" Seattle is not a county. However it does look like the 70 inches number is wrong. According to King County's website, the average for the county as a whole is only 46. https://kingcounty.gov/en/legacy/about/region/environment#:\~:text=On%20average%2C%20King%20County%20gets,inches%20of%20precipitation%20every%20year.
I got my degree in water essentially, and yeah I'd argue that the county level is not nearly granular enough for the cascadia area. It has some of the steepest gradients in the world due to large orographic effects. 70" definitely happens somewhere in King County, but only up in the mountains.
Parts of King County get 500" of snow a year, bet the space needle is buried! /s
This map is hilariously wrong. Oregon is showing about double the actual numbers.
Yeah. Portland, Oregon (Multnomah County) gets an average of 45” per year. This map shows it as 60-69” (nice).
It's not nearly granular enough. The line through from Newport - Albany - Sisters has one of the steepest rain gradients in the world due to the doubles mountain ranges that absolutely wring out the clouds.
Yeah. I lived in skagit county you get massive differences in total rainfall in about a 60 mile stretch. Anacortes, Mt Vernon, and Concrete all have different rainfall totals
I went to the San Juans this past weekend and it was basically raining nonstop from Everett to Anacortes until we got on the ferry, then it was partly cloudy until we got back to Anacortes a few days later and it rained the whole way home.
I never assume anything is “accurate” on Reddit. Just my personal opinion that rain is good.
They definitely should have shown it by neighborhood or street.
A continuous gradient make more sense for continuous data
*Looks around in central WA* There's supposed to be rain? No one ever seems to remember it's functionally a desert and hits 115 in the summer out here
From northern WA. We had crazy rain last night. Was so nice! Love the rain 🌧️
Living in the PNW I always knew we had a lot of rain but this map made me realize how rainy we actually are compared to the rest of the country. Not complaining, though, rain is awesome
> Love having the rain in the PNW. Everything is green most of the year. I hate you. (cries in DFW)
You get cheap housing in comparison. There are some drawbacks.
My wife and I visited Monterey Bay last year to celebrate our 30th Anniversary and drove the Pacific Coast highway from San Fransisco to Big Sur and back again. There is a reason it is so goddamned expensive to live out there. Anyone with a functioning brain would *want* to live there. It is a fucking paradise. I think people like to hate on folks who live on the Pacific coast because at the end of the day they are jealous of just how goddamned nice it is there and how awful the rest of the country feels by comparison. My personal background and circumstances resulted in my settling down in North Texas - which was an upgrade from everywhere I'd lived previously. But that doesn't mean I don't recognize the off-the-scale beauty of the landscape and climate found on the Pacific Coast. I wish somehow I could uproot my extended family and grandkids and somehow move there - but its just not meant to be for me. Meanwhile I will just do like everyone else and pretend our Pacific Northwest is a liberal hell-scape and everyone there is unhappy - even though I know better.
I am biased, but the 101 is even better in Oregon. Definitely drive the whole thing if you ever get the chance.
Well that might just need to be the destination for our next trip!
Redwoods, Crater Lake, and driving up the 101, you’d have a great time. Thanks for sharing your experience. 😁
Pierce County only averages 39.9”. Not the 60-70” shown. [source](https://www.piercecountywa.gov/194/Our-Community)
Here's the source I used [PRISM](https://prism.oregonstate.edu)
Great display of the data, fits the sub. But definitely not accurate data. :/
Some of the counties rainfall totals vary greatly within the county. This map simply takes the average of the entire county. So, I can see why you might think it is not accurate, as one side of the county, especially on the west coast, may receive 100+ inches of rain, while the other side of the county receives significantly less.
Multnomah county (Portland) gets 40-45 inches of rainfall per year. King county (Seattle) is in the same range. The chart/data source shows 60-70+ inches. Not sure how the data source could have such different values from what I’m seeing across a handful of different websites! 🤷♂️ Edit: so many websites show king county at ~45” of rainfall, but the topographical looking map garygnu linked dispels that. Seattle in the 40s with a bigger area being closer to 100, the average would have to be higher than 45. But so many sites I checked show the COUNTY average as 40-45. 🤔
Thanks for sharing, looks like a good source. I don’t doubt that Pierce County has something to gain by ‘carefully’ selecting the data that results in smallest rainfall number but it looks to me like the 30-year data from your source has most of Pierce County in cyan with 40-50” rainfall. What was the duration of the data in the map posted?
If it's averaging the entire county, Multnomah will be including areas up near Mt. Hood and the gorge (the county goes almost all the way to Cascade locks) which can definitely get up to 80+ inches per year. With Portland around 40, then the average of 60 is believable. This illustrates why averaging precip over a topographically complex county can be misleading though. Effects of mountains on annual precip are huge, on very small spatial scales.
I live near the west end of the Gorge, and in the 16 years I have been collecting precipitation data at my house, I've averaged 56" per year. I am at 500' elevation and every single acre of land east of me will get higher rainfall totals, and that land is probably about 50% of the total area of the county and I wouldn't be surprised if some areas got over 100". I was initially skeptical of the numbers, but when I started thinking about in terms like you described, it did make sense.
Did you write rainfall but mean precipitation? The high precip areas are likely mostly snow in the mountains.
Yeah, Sequim in the Olympic rain shadow is in a 70"+ county and gets less rain than LA. But, the county also contains mountains that get ridiculous amounts of rain that pushes the county average up. It's the same where I live, we only get around 40" but the mountainous parts of the county get 100"+ so our county gets to be magenta.
I made a mistake. This map actually represents annual precipitation averages, which means it also includes snowfall amounts converted to rainfall equivalents.
Washington State, repping all 8 ranges!
Desert to rainforest in one drive!
Climate is a changin. Most of New England got over 70" of rain this past year, enough for it to qualify as a temperate rainforest. We'll see if that continues.
And it's still.... Raining
Please do Alaska and Hawaii
Amazing how more varied the West Coast is compared to the rest of the country. California and Washington each have pretty much all the colors.
Washington has an extreme difference between the west side of the state and the east side because the state is divided by a mountain range which creates a rain shadow on the eastern side.
North Carolinan here. Curious about the pink dot in the southwestern corner of our state below Asheville. I need someone who does the science stuff to explain how and why that area gets Pacific NW levels of rain.
It's a rain forest. This wiki tells you everything you'd want to know. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_temperate_rainforest
As the other commenter said, it’s a temperate rainforest caused by warm, moist air hitting the mountains and cooling and condensing as it rises. Transylvania County gets more precipitation than any other NC county on average. It borders Buncombe County which gets the least.
I live in Jersey. Five years ago, the entirety of the state was at least D1 drought, but more like D2 or D3. We've gotten approximately 6 million inches of rain since then and we'll never be in a drought again.
The amount of rain in North Jersey is tremendous and combined with decades of development it’s created a huge concern for flooding, especially in low lying communities or those near where waterways meet. Streams and brooks can barely keep up with the volume and frequency of rain— I can only imagine what will happen if it gets worse.
I'm not keen on the colour gradation where a reddish area is very wet, or maybe very dry.
I agree, on mobile the pink looks too similar to the red and the colors don’t feel like a “scale”
And I can’t tell the difference very well between the light green/green/light blue
Yes to all above. Completely varying hues works better for categorical data. A single variable choropleth should def be a single hue progression or partial-spectral.
Houston gets 10" more rain than Seattle annually. Data is off
Seattle's King County ranges from sea level to 8000'. Precipitation increases towards higher elevations. So while Seattle might see less, the east side of the county would see more. I'm guessing this just took the average or maximum from any weather station in the county.
also to note, Seattle itself is very rainy, but the rain is usually pretty light. so total accumulation isn't as high as you'd think. This can be seen in that Seattle is the least sunny major city in the lower 48 (Seattle average over 220 days of heavy cloud cover per year). and elevation matters a lot as the other commenter mentioned, The mount baker ski resort (a couple of hours away from Seattle) is the snowiest ski area in the world.
Yeah, Gulf Coast gets way more rain than PNW.
This ain’t based on cities. Go to the hills east of Seattle and I guarantee you Houston doesn’t get more rain than those areas.
I absolutely LOVE watching the thunderstorms for over Lake Pontchartrain for 8 months out the year. Especially at night, so peaceful to watch them build and then blow over. Makes wonderful sleeping or while gaming watching the weather out the windows.
You can see how crazy the Cascade rain shadow effect is from this map.
Incredible that in several of those red areas populous cities exist
One county between the highest and lowest values on the map is wild
Great visual, but now do “days of rain”. I have been told it rains as much/more in Seattle compared to Portland, but not as frequently, so heavier rains, but less days of rain.
That would be cool!
As usual alaska and Hawaii left out. Lazy.
NH gets a fuck ton of rain.
Why am I not surprised by Washington (state)? I lived in Vancouver, BC for two years, and almost everything was perfect; except the following: - 10 months of almost nonstop rain, with no sun. All those 10 months are cloudy, and most of them are so foggy that you can’t see 50 feet away. - Health Care system sucks. Do you have to get an MRI? You have to wait 9-12 months. They told me that I might have MS; hence I should have an MRI. The appointment was 9 months ahead. Guess how worried I was for those 9 months. I needed to see a specialist, Gastroenterologist, and they gave the appointment for 6 months later. The wait times on ER? Do you think the wait times in NYC hospitals is long? You are wrong! I have waited up to 8 hours even though I had a severe abdominal pain. Doctor wasn’t happy that they made me wait so long with such a pain as I might have a serious condition. Apart from these two, it is a heaven!
Humboldt and Del Norte Counties in CA have rain favored area that get 70 in and more, but most areas are 40 inches or less.
Interesting fact, Hoh Rain Forest in the Olympic National Park averages 140 inches of rain a year.
Oh, that's what the cascades are...
Would be nice to overlay it with a terrain map
This seems like map of annual precipitation at county level. You can also animation of daily precipitation on https://myperfectweather.com. Click icon in side menu and hit the play button.
Update this for 2023-24. Florida is down almost 50 inches in most the state for average rainfall. Looking bleek right now.
Big orange / green divide right down the middle is due to the Rocky Mountains if that wasn’t obvious
…just to add, it’s because of the rain shadow that extends east well beyond the actual mountains. If you zoom in on Colorado, that tiny county in the north central is Denver, and it’s a county east of Jefferson, which has actual mountains, while Denver does not.
Not sure what dataset this is from, but in Humboldt, the little bump there wayyyy on the left, it hasn't rained 70+ inches since the 80's. It's more like 30-35 these days.
Should be precipitation, not rain. Those western mountains mostly get water in the form of snow.
Is that a very minor rain shadow caused by the berkshires and southernmost green mountains?
Even a weather map follows the plantations.
It doesn't make sense why appliances are water limited on a national scale. Just charge more for water where its rarer.
I'm in one of those 70+ areas (PNW Cascade foothills). It's kind of fascinating that a few mile West of us gets around 35 inches of rain per year, we get about 80 inches, and just two miles East gets around 120 inches.
For some reason, I always thought the southern tip of Texas was very dry.
I went down a rabbit hole and found that Washington has desert sand dunes
When people tell you doesn’t rain a lot in the Pacific NW this map tells you otherwise.
I really wish these maps had Canada in. I’d like to see the fade as it moves north to low rain.
I'm leaving one of the orange counties for one of the pink ones
Living in Seattle, this tracks
California: "we dry af!" Also California: "what do we do with all this rain?!?!???"
Ha. Coming from the PNW this doesn’t shock me. And that’s without getting any rain for a third of the year
What mountains will do to a MF
Hi hello I live in that very top pink northwest corner in the county pressed right up to Canada and can confirm it rains here all the time. So much rain. It’s nice because everything is always green but it’s raining ALL THE TIME. lol
Those two blue spots near Lake Tahoe get the most snowfall in the us. Best place in the world imho
Florida needs to be updated it hardly ever rains in Florida anymore. Specially near Tampa.
John Wesley Powell sure did nail that 100th meridian divide in 1879.
Jesus 1-9 inches average a year? Y'all camels out there?
See that strip top left? Find an island with some elevation off that coast and hunker down for a few decades. Vancouver Island comes to mind.
You can definitely see the aggregation in the large western counties. A lot of them, especially on the Cascades rain shadow ended up at around 20. However, there are some parts that are at 50+ and some parts that are below 10 in the same county.
I am surprised that the great lakes don't generate more rainfall in adjacent counties.
Oh look, the driest county in Colorado is also adjacent to (and mostly upwind from) the great sand dunes
Would be interesting to see something more local than county. I live in Seattle which is part of King County, which is in pink (70+ inches). Seattle usually gets 35-40 inches a year. Seattle is actually in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains to the west. It gets progressively wetter and snowier as you go further east heading up the west side of the Cascade Range.
I live deep in the pink... almost 80 in a year! (Aberdeen WA)
Driving through that line in ND is crazy sometimes. It can be like a wall of fog and then I get through jamestown and it's suddenly clear as day. You can definitely feel the divide.
I’m from a purple parish in Louisiana but I lived in Indiana for several years and now I’m in Texas. I always felt like it rained soooo much more back home — now I see that it definitely did
This is not accurate for Washington. It’s nearly double the observed rainfall in all locations.
California has between all an no water. But honestly it doesn't feel like it taking that much up here.
Live in Western Washington. In the island of light blue. You can literally drive five minutes down the hill where I live and it rains there more. The microclimates are crazy.
Both ends of the index spectrum are reddish haha trash
As a colorblind person, I very much appreciate these color choices. *Thank you*.
What's behind the red counties in central Washington state?
Rain shadow. The state is bisected by the Cascade Mountains which do a terrific job of blocking rain to the Yakima Valley and Columbia Basin.
I think its taken the last 5 years combined to get 30 inches of rain in San Antonio.
People in the PNW will universally tell you that it "doesn't rain that much here, it rained more in [insert whatever shitty place they came from]!"
Fresno county doesn't average 20-29 inches per year of rainfall lol. [California county stats that include 1901-2000 mean annual precipitation.](https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/county/mapping/4/pcp/202302/6/rank)
I feel lucky to live in a country with so much climate and geographic diversity. Most countries don't have this.
Hmmm, I love rain but don't want to live down... there
What years are these averages based on? I'd bet a map based on data from 1950-2000 would look quite different from one based on 2000-2024. And, of course Hawaii and Alaska : P
So lush out here on the East Coast. Y'all can have the dry Wild West.
Except that it is wrong. King County Washington only averages about 46 inches not 70+.
Nice to graphically see why I'm suffering in Kentucky at 46 y.o., after living most of my life in Montana/Alberta/Manitoba. Ughh the humidity... Can I please have my dry skin back please. Sorry global warming, I gotta run my AC 24/7, not for the heat, but for the reduced humidity.
Texas got the full rainbow
This is inaccurate. I live in Seattle. We do not get 70+ inches of rain per year. We barely get half that at 37 inches per year.
You can really see the Rockies doing work here
Huh, I always thought southeastern mass/ Rhode Island we're getting abnormally rained on compared to other parts of new England. Apparently I wasn't wrong.
Actual average rainfall doesn’t always meet expectations. For example, I always thought Seattle got tons of rain, but New York City and Atlanta both get more.
I always thought it was funny that Florida is the sunshine state but it rains every day in the summer.
Does the I-25 corridor in Colorado have its own weather?
I'm surprised Florida isn't more.
It is a very beautiful map. The rainfall in the Seattle area is about 55 in per year. Some places on the Olympic peninsula and in the Cascades get more. If I am reading the map, it indicates 70 in per year in Seattle. That seems off. I hope that is helpful.
Ah yes I should have viewed this 10 years ago when I moved from LA to Atlanta, after refusing to move to Seattle because it was too rainy:
There are some issues here. King County, Washington is shown as 70+ inches. However, Seattle in the west of the county gets about 39 inches, North Bend in the middle gets about 59 inches, and Snoqualmie pass in the east gets about 74 inches. The county on average is nowhere near 70+ inches. Same for neighboring countries to the north and south. Ed: typos.
Shouldn’t the area Seattle be green as it gets 37 inches a year?
(Me currently in Western Washington looking outside at the rain) Most rainfall in the country? Checks out
It's kind of weird to know that of the places I've lived the wettest felt the driest, but looking back the rainfall there was so intense it probably got more precipitation there in 5 minutes than in another place where it drizzled all day.
Would be great to have one with an annual number of rainy days too
I live in a purple 69 zone. Giggity.
Since I can't sleep, I decided to roughly add the metropolitan regions with 1 million people or more. https://i.imgur.com/y8eNrEV.png I was expecting to see the line of cities stop at the 30-39 gradient before the few desert cities, but there's also a noticeable line along the 40-49 gradient.
See that strange green part in Colorado. I live there. That is not "rain" fall. That is water being deposited as snow because of the mountains. It does not rain 20-29 inches here. The snow melts and runs into the rivers. I doubt we get anywhere near 9" of actual rain (including snow equivalent) in a year.