How wet are rainforests?

We all assume that rainforests are pretty rainy… but exactly how soggy are they?

Unsurprisingly these forests see the greatest amount of rainfall of any biome on the planet with an average year seeing between 79 to 394 inches of rain.

For comparison, Florida's annual rainfall ranges between 40 to 60 inches depending on the location.

We knew this already, but why are these forests so prone to rainfall? First, there are two forms of rainforest, tropical and temperate.

Tropical rainforests are hot and wet with average temperatures approaching 86F. There are also a lot of plants in tropical forests which results in transpiration.

As a result of this, there is a significant amount of water vapor in the air which forms clouds above leading to more rain before the cycle begins again.

Temperate rainforests do not get as warm and see two seasons. Wet winter and dry summer.

There is less plant life here and snow can even appear due to their location away from the warm tropics. The Tongass National Forest is a large swath of temperate rainforest located in southeast Alaska.

Instead, it is their locations near oceans that cause a large amount of rainfall and these are more akin to very wet woodlands when compared to those in the tropics.