“Rain rain go away, come again another day.”  With rain on fourteen of the last twenty-four days, this old nursery rhyme sums up the feelings of many New Yorkers.  For the residents of Hilo, Hawai’i, however, this sentiment is not an option.

Hilo is the wettest city in the United States.  Situated on the windward coast of the island of Hawai’i, the city is in the path of the moisture laden Trade Winds. Averaging 126 inches of rain annually, Hilo experiences every conceivable type of rainfall, from mist to downpours.  Looking at the calendar’s point of view, some form of precipitation falls there 272 days of the year on average.

As soggy as it may sound, Hilo’s amazing tropical rain forests, waterfalls, and rainbows would not be possible without this significant precipitation.