Rainiest Places in Canada

No region of Canada measures as much precipitation as the west coast of British Columbia. And no weather station on that coast comes close to recording the amount of rain that falls into the Mitchell Inlet rain gauge on Moresby Island in Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands). The deserted beach gathers 6325 mm (20.8 feet) of preciptation a year. Nearly all of that, 99 percent, falls as rain.

Not surprisingly, it rains more often at the soggy island inlet than any other Canadian weather station. Mitchell Inlet averages 275 days a year when it rains or snows. That means, three out of four days there are rainy.

The remote inlet receives 1.3 metres more rain than the next wettest place measured in the country. Coming in second for rainfall is Boat Bluff, located along the Inside Passage of BC's central coast. Boat Bluff registers 5047 mm (16.6 feet) of precipitation a year that falls on 253 days, again almost all rain.

The rankings here are for 1758 weather stations that record precipitation information for Environment Canada. The precipitation data are averages of weather measurements made from 1981 to 2010.

Wettest Canadian Communities

Boat Bluff's rainfall indicates that Klemtu is possibly the rainiest community in Canada. Boat Bluff lies five kilometers north of Klemtu, on a separate island. The Swindle Island village is home to about 460 Kitasoo and Xaixais people.

Farther up the Inside Passage, Hartley Bay measures 4673 mm, over 15.3 feet, of water pelting down each year. The Gitga'at village of 180 year-round residents sits at the confluence of Grenville and Douglas Channels, approximately 140 km south of Prince Rupert.

Hartley Bay is among a select group of BC towns, villages and cities that regularly record over three metres of precipitation a year:

Average annual precipitation for very wet communities in British Columbia:

Days	Place	Inches	Milli­metres
205	Hartley Bay	184.0	4673
169	Tahsis	169.5	4305
207	Port Renfrew	138.0	3505
225	Port Alice	134.9	3427
206	Ucluelet	131.9	3351
208	Tofino	128.8	3271
229	Prince Rupert	120.5	3060

Highest Precipitation in the Rest of Canada

Outside of BC, the Atlantic coast is Canada's wettest region. But it still gets nowhere near the amount of drizzle that deluges the Pacific coast. Here's how much precipitation falls at a sampling of the country's wettest spots:

Average total yearly precipitation

Days	Place	Inches	Milli­metres
164	Wreck Cove Brook, Nova Scotia	76.6	1946
183	Red Harbour, Newfoundland	72.5	1841
147	Pools Cove, Newfoundland	72.0	1828
154	Guysborough, Nova Scotia	71.4	1815
219	Forêt Montmorency, Quebec	62.3	1583
236	St Fortunat, Quebec	60.7	1542
172	Alma, New Brunswick	59.5	1510
163	Allenford, Ontario	50.9	1294
175	New Glasgow, PEI	49.5	1258
149	Blyth, Ontario	49.1	1247
162	Waterton Village, Alberta	43.2	1096

Record Rainfalls

A few places on BC's wet west coast have received more than 300 millimetres of rain in a single day. That's more than some areas of Canada get in a year. This table lists some of the biggest downpours ever recorded for one day in Canada:

Amount of precipitation in one day

Date	Place	Inches	Milli­metres
Jan 26, 1984	McInnes Island, BC	12.6	319
Jan 14, 1961	Seymour Falls, BC	12.4	314
Nov 14, 1991	Mitchell Inlet, BC	12.1	306
Nov 11, 1990	Tahsis, BC	11.8	300
Nov 10, 1990	Seymour Falls, BC	11.8	300