Is Seattle really the rain capital of the world?

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Story Published: Oct 4, 2006 at 12:57 PM PST

Story Updated: Oct 4, 2006 at 12:57 PM PST

By Scott Sistek

Well, sort of. Seattle ranks behind a lot of cities when it comes to annual rainfall totals. Chicago, Houston, New York City, and Miami, among others, all get more rain per year than Seattle's 37 inches.

But that's because while it indeed rains a lot here, it doesn't rain very heavily. It could rain all day here, and we'll pick up maybe 0.10" of rain. Meanwhile, a 20 minute thunderstorm in Miami could drop 0.75" of rain.

On the other hand, our area is still the champ when it comes to number of cloudy days. Seattle ranks in the top 5 nationally 226 cloudy days per year behind Anchorage, Forks, Astoria and Olympia. We're in the top 20 with 140 days of measurable rain.

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